RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW

posted by Michael on 06 September 2010

Exposures from the Public Realm

FORMAT International Photography Festival 2011

As a preview of the FORMAT 2011 International Photography Festival, Troika Editions is hosting an exhibition "RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW: Exposures from the Public Realm."

Opening on the 6^th October at The Front Room Gallery in Clerkenwell, London this exhibition unites the work of three artists Katrin Koenning, Schinster, Kurt Tong and celebrates their distinctive approach to image making and street photography. The three artists were winners of the Troika Editions/FORMAT Exposure Award and selected from the hundreds of entries to the Exposure Open, part of FORMAT 2011.

In his series "Street Drama" Schinster from South Korea, captures images of people as they pass through a static scene over an extended period of time. Then using the multiple images he creates a composite view of the history of the space. Far removed from the idea of the decisive moment, Schinster's distillation of time has a symmetry and humour many street photographers strive for in a single frame.

German-born Katrin Koenning, a Melbourne-based photographer creates her mise-en-scène in the series "Thirteen: Twenty Lacuna". Attracted to the sunlight as it appears for just 20 minutes on a street in downtown Melbourne Katrin observes the passers-by as they appear out of the shadows. Listening to their ipods or rushing to a meeting, each protagonist enters the spotlight on the stage unaware of their role in Koenning's drama of light and dark.

In "22 Steps to the Sea", Kurt Tong was interested in the erosion of the Texas Gulf Coast. With his back to the sea he took 22 steps inland and photographed what he found. His act of photographing the landscape attracted the attention of the local police and eventually the FBI under the new Homeland Security regulations and so he curtailed his project. A few months later he discovered on Google Maps the exact same images taken by the Google Camera Car, which had not sparked the same interest from the authorities and was now available to the billions of people surfing the web. In this exclusive set of diptychs Kurt looks at how issues surrounding security have become a concern for the documentary photographer.