Where We Stand – The Final Show

The MA came to and end with this collective exhibition at the LCC. It was an honor to share studies and exhibition with this group of people. It was great to be able to finally meet them in person after two years of online talking.

Where We Stand by Max Houghton

Where do you stand on immigration? Scottish independence? Russia in Crimea? Our opinion-hungry world demands fast answers, but such important questions, and others like them, demand steadier and more sustained thinking. 

Working out where we stand is always relational, which is what makes photography such a potent vehicle for investigation. It is rarely a photograph alone that is compelling, but its relation to its subject and to its audience, to time and to place. In order to know where we stand, we need to know the whereabouts of others too. We need to listen attentively, see clearly. To take it further, we need to smell the air, taste the food, touch the earth ‘over there.’ 

In this sense, twenty-one photographers and filmmakers from 13 countries, share the unified perspective implied by the title of their MA graduation exhibition. Taking their personal experience as a starting point, they seek to understand the convulsions of the world and its peoples. Much of the work is a study of transition, aptly via both still and moving image. Many of the people pictured are caught between states, homes, or cultures. The other connective thread is a very strong attachment to a sense of place – the ‘where’ of the title is duly prominent. We are vividly transported to Mexico, Brazil, the Caucasus, as well as to the landscapes of Metroland, Touristville and the country of the past. Our relationship to the land, our earthliness, endures.

Often, where we stand is neither here, nor there, but somewhere inbetween, in the interstices. Photography, never a wholly comfortable medium, inhabits this space usefully. 

WhereWStand

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