Melanie Stidolph

Thank you to João and Catarina of the wonderful Fauna and Flora website – www.faunaandflora.org.  They are featuring some works from my exhibition The Fall on their blog.  Their website is a growing map of evocative works by international photographers, and they bring a great sensibility to the discussion and presentation of the works.  They are developing the project all the time – exhibitions, book works and online interviews. Thanks too to Andrew Bruce www.brucebruce.co.uk for mentioning my work to Fauna and Flora, enjoying his work, particularly the ‘flying’ animals in the Vanitas series.

Online now, interview with Christiane Monarchi, Editor of Photomonitor for its November issue.  Discussion around the new work for exhibition The Fall centering on the possibility of shifts in tone in the work from ‘playful ephemeral whimsy….(to) possible darker meanings – the possibility of mishap, accident, or even violence’. The full interview can be found at www.photomonitor.co.uk.

A new publication to coincide with the solo exhibition The Fall, which is at Campbell Works gallery until 4th November. Features new essay by Daniel C Blight which engages with the nature and role of the ‘punctum’ in images that are not directly triggered by the photographer’s hand. Full colour 40 page publication designed by Cameron Leadbetter of Shining Studio includes works from the current exhibition and the wider body of work. ‘Photographs taken with the mechanical motion detector are photographs emancipated from their dependence on human ritual. The punctum emerges from the photograph, denies its crime, announces itself as something that it is not and disappears.’Daniel C Blight 

Is That It is a group exhibition by the Tri-pod group of photographers.  Tri-pod was established by Miranda Gavin and Wendy Pye as a platform for encouraging and demystifying the creative process.  This group exhibition was conceived as a stopping point for work in progress; each of the 9 participating photographers are showing work that in some way is not yet fixed in its presentation method, image selection, or ongoing development of ideas.  The exhibition is part of the Brighton Photo Fringe and is on until Sunday 4th November showing work by: Natasha Caruana, Zoe Childerley, Miranda Gavin, Karen Grainger, Dean Hollowood, Sacha Lehrfreund, Judith Lyons, Wendy Pye and Melanie Stidolph.  A big thank you to everyone for all their work in putting it together.

Thanks very much to Daniel C Blight who chose my work Windfall as the starting point for his intriguing piece of writing for the site Various Small Fires.  Daniel was invited by Thierry Bal to contribute to the One Photograph series. Daniel’s writing will also appear in a new publication as part of my upcoming solo show The Fall at Campbell Works (October 11th – November 4th) where Daniel will be talking about his writing at the gallery on Saturday November 3rd at 3pm.

The Fall, solo exhibition with Campbell Works later this year.  Exhibition and new work supported by Arts Council England.  Accompanied by a new publication, which will include an essay by Daniel Campbell Blight.  New works based on ideas developing from the work Windfall. Looking at the hope, tension and sense of impending disaster in images of objects and subjects in temporary flight.  Currently experimenting with movement, light and sound sensors, enabling subjects and environmental conditions to trigger the shutter. www.campbellworks.org.

Last year I was commissioned to produce a portrait as part of The World in London project, organised by The Photographers’ Gallery.  The launch was on Wednesday morning at Victoria Park, where the large scale portraits are displayed on hoardings.  They are also on the outside of Park House on Oxford Street, opposite Selfridges, and selected images, including mine (triggered by a Siamese-cross cat called Dot) of Mauritius born Corina Armel are also at the Gulbenkian Foundation on Hoxton Square.  All the prints will become part of The Museum of London collection. See the project website at www.theworldinlondon.org.uk, to view images, find venues and hear the sitter’s stories.

In 2010 I was invited to participate in The Loving Gaze symposium programmed by Susan Andrews and Fiona Yaron-Field, from London Metropolitan University.  I presented Heather McDonough’s recent work on her mother’s terminal illness, and Heather presented my work under the title My Boyfriend and Other Animals – ‘Melanie’s images seem to arrest or suspend time, to highlight a notion, smell or sound.’  activate is edited by Susan and Fiona and focuses on a different issue each publication.