We See You | In the Margins Exhibition

Excerpt from Mark: 

Jon had spoken about and remembered Libraries as safe places, without the pressure of enforced learning; sanctuaries and a sense of belonging to explore one’s own interests. We discussed stigma and discrimination and arts capacity to educate and bring change. Jon spoke about his work and interventions, the art of subversion, challenge and courage and his campaign for parity in the arts for autistic artists & neurodiversity. It was an inspiring meeting.

Camera Clubs intention was to record the artists from community art centres and colleges (Bloomin’ Arts and The Orpheus Centre) making art for the ‘In the Margins’ exhibition, using Polaroid cameras and film. With its glossy surface and immediacy, Polaroid has the authenticity of each photograph being unique – and we just happened to have an 80’s Polaroid camera in the studio that we needed to try out!

It was wonderful working with the artists and staff at both centres. The sessions were full of creativity and humour, a reminder of art-making’s ability to bring joy. Artists shared their work and their stories, and everyone got the Polaroid angle. Towards the end of our session at Bloomin’ Arts the cameras were passed around and this continued at The Orpheus. We were all photographers, and we all watched the magic of the photo’s developing to reveal wonderful pictures. Thank you, DAiSY, for bringing about this enriching collaboration.

Back at the studio we started to collate the images. Camera Club photographer and tutor Angus had used a digital layering technique to create his book ‘Defying Expression’ last year, a book using overlaying techniques to “question and challenge neurotypical structures”. He used a similar approach with the Polaroid images of artworks and portraits to create a finished print – a photographic tapestry of merged, textured and layered images entitled ‘We See You’.

From the start we’d planned for the print to be partially obscured, hidden behind books and in the margins. We thank Reigate library staff for helping with this. The print was revealed on the Thursday evening during a performance of book borrowing when the history books were removed from shelves. Everyone in attendance got to see the full picture before history was returned to the shelves.

The second element to ‘We See You’ is in the form of an installation. We’d wanted to use the Polaroid cases and dark slides and, alongside old library lending pockets with dates tracing a books history – used these assets to frame and hang the photographs. The work has a gentle, quiet kinetic energy.

Art Matters thanks: Redhill & Reigate Libraries, Bloomin’ Arts, The Orpheus Centre, Cara, DAiSY and Jon for their inspiration and support and everyone involved in the project.

‘In the Margins’ runs at Reigate Library for two months.