As some of you know, I went to Bratislava in November 2017 because I had work in a exhibition there, so here’s the full story!
I was involved with a group called INTAC, They were founded as an international art collaboration project out of OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. They have been working with students to creating collaborative art projects all over the world since 2011.
I was contacted by a great photographer who was involved with the program at OCADU called Giselle Mira Diaz. I was invited to participate in a film swapping project, initially it was just the pair of us, but due to Giselle and INTAC this particular project ended up with multiple people swapping films all over the globe.
Swapping the films led to some truly unpredictable results within the images.
The images above were show on a film I received from Saanni from blank, being a colour film and having no idea what had already been shot, I decided to load the film into my Canon AE-1 program and shot the whole film with the camera upside down. The intent being that if there were any landscapes on the film, then it would create an interesting effect.
The images below are from the film I shot and then sent to Giselle. I’ve always preferred working on ilford HP5+ as it’s what I’m most familiar with. The images overlapped almost perfectly, cell for cell.
The work was exhibited as part of the INTAC collection in a show called Anatomy of the Soul. A beautiful collection of works by young photographic artists all over the world.
Our work was featured as not only as part of Anatomy of the Soul, but as a part of larger spectrum of work. Bratislava was hosting their European Month of Photography. The city was filled with various exhibitions and galleries throughout the month. We tried to see as many as we could, one day we actually visited about 7 exhibitions in a single evening!
The exhibitions in the festival covered all areas of photographic practice, From fine art photography on display in a church, to gritty documentary photography in a listed building and abstract works in a disused shop at the bottom of a block of flats.
During my stay we decided to go and check out Vienna, the capital city of Austria. I only got to spend a. Few hours there, but in those few hours I got to see the grounds of the Palace which was worth the trip!
The experience was one that I wouldn’t have missed for the world. Someday I’ll return and spend more time exploring the culture at my own speed.
RPeterThomas Photographic 