No Place is An Island

The latest edition of Photo50, No Place is An Island, curated by Rodrigo Orrantia, presents works by British and UK-based artists responding to the idea of an island. Echoing John Donne’s celebrated book No Man is an Island, the exhibition explores what it means to be an island and its multiple possibilities towards the future.

‍

The title of the exhibition also alludes to the idea that contemporary photography is not an island or an isolated medium, and the selected artists will showcase photography as part of a wider practice, pushing and redefining its boundaries through sculpture, performance, moving image and sound.

This  exhibition  also  celebrates  10  years  since  the  seminal  Photo50  show  entitled The  New Alchemists, curated by Rodrigo’s mentor and friend Sue Steward, who passed away in 2017. No Place Is An Island references Steward’s work and ideas, bringing them to the present by looking at how photographic art has evolved in the last decade. The exhibition connects a generation of established and mid-career artists, with emerging practices working around the same interests and, in most cases, directly inspired by artists in the show.

Curator Rodrigo Orratoria said: “The works in this show connect with the topical issues of our time,  but  also  to  a  universal  narrative,  the  journey  to  an  idealised  place.  I’d  like  to  start conversations about what it means to be an island, and how we construct it in our minds.

No  Place  Is  An  Island  talks  about  connectivity,  about  the fact nothing exists in isolation, it is merely a fiction, a fantasy.”

Several of the works in No Place is An Island focus on the theme of our relationship to landscape, and suggest new ways of understanding how we perceive and interact with our surroundings.

In his poignant body of photographic work Hometowns, John MacLean pays homage to the subtle yet important  influence   of   the   hometown,   particularly   in   relation   to   the   visual development of artists themselves. Beginning with a simple idea that he quickly jotted down in a notebook several years ago – “Photograph the hometowns of your heroes” – MacLean has explored  and  photographed  more  than  twenty  cities, towns and neighborhoods around the world where a number of his artistic heroes spent their childhood, such as Bridget Riley, James Turrell and Wassily Kandinsky. MacLean’s project searched for the everyday places that served as the most basic visual experiences and foundations for those artists who have inspired him, and for his own creative inspiration.

‍

LONDON ART FAIR - 20-24 April 2022

Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington, London N1 0QH www.londonartfair.co.uk