Work #2 - IPRN Recidence 2006
Jan 21. -Mar 8. 2009
Jyväskylä Art Museum exhibits the work of six photographers -- Vincent Debanne (France), Luigi Gariglio (Italy), Ulrich Gebert (Germany), Tuomo Manninen (Finland), Xavier Ribas (Spain) and Tomoko Yoneda (UK) -- produced in 2006 as commissions for the Changing Faces/ WORK project.
The theme of Changing Faces/WORK is the range of changes and continuities observable in the sphere of work in Europe. The project addresses such issues as: the geographical shifting of work, and workforces, within new European boundaries; and the changing nature of work as it becomes increasingly invisible.
Changing Faces/ WORK is a project, initiated by IPRN (International Photography Research Network) a collaboration between European universities and art institutions, that each year gives commissions to six European photographers to travel and work in one of the network’s partner countries. Each year the results of these commissions are exhibited, accompanied by a publication, in a different partner country.
Changing Faces/WORK is supported by Culture 2000-funds from the European Union. The project organisers are: University of Sunderland (UK), University of Jyväskylä (Finland), Folkwang Museum (Germany), Dom Fotografie (Slovakia) and the Faculty of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden University / Masters in Photographic Studies and Paradox (The Netherlands). This exhibition will be travelling to: Valencia, Spain and Liptovsky Mikulas, Slovakia.
The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the The Centre for Creative Photography.
Information about the artists
Vincent Debanne (1972, France)
Sent by Les Rencontres d’Arles, France > Hosted by Dom Fotografie, Slovakia
Dreamworks comments on the status of manual labour and addresses links between work, leisure and entertainment. Debanne references socialist propaganda photomontage to provoke uncertainty,
enabling us to see things differently by playing on the articulation of the unknown within the familiar, raising the issue of what is true and what is false.
Ulrich Gebert (1976, Germany)
Sent by Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany > Hosted by Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
Amerika shows the working conditions of immigrant workers during the orange harvest around Valencia, focusing on the day-to-day realities for the people who are involved. The title refers to Franz Kafka’s last, unfinished book called Amerika and as such points up the issues Gebert addresses: the romantic notion of the promised land the longing for a better life and the complex history of migration.
Tomoko Yoneda (1965, Japan)
Sent by University of Sunderland, United Kingdom > Hosted by Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea, Italy
The City Rises is a portrait of the Italian town of Sesto San Giovanni near Milan, which once was a centre of heavy industry and a bastion of communism. Now the factories have closed and the manufacturing industries have moved to places with cheaper labour forces; thus marking the end of the age of industrialisation in Europe, with massive consequences for the visual landscape. Sesto San Giovanni is for Yoneda a symbol of many cities in Europe that have undergone rapid transformation; and with this project she explores the themes of history, memory and the passage of time.
Luigi Gariglio (1968, Italy)
Sent by Museo di Fotografia Contemporanea, Italy > Hosted by University of Jyväskylä/Centre for Creative Photography, Finland
2 a.m. is a series of portraits, of the youngest generation of the management of family businesses taken at 2 a.m. in the midst of Finnish nature. The subjects were asked to write a few lines about themselves, the company or the founder of the company. The portraits are combined with images of the original company founders rephotographed in the same place as the portrait was made. The three components – portrait, founder portrait rephotographed and note – form a unit, but for Gariglio they don’t always need to be seen together.
Tuomo Manninen (1962, Finland)
Sent by University of Jyväskylä/Centre for Creative Photography, Finland > Hosted by Les Rencontres d’Arles, France
Nous/We is a series of group portraits inspired by descriptions and depictions of the professions of 14th century Paris. The series is a continuation of a much larger photographic project of group portraits called Me/We. With Me/We Manninen aims to portray life and social relationships around the world and to create a sense of belonging and community in an otherwise individualistic world. Most of the photos are on display in Galleria Harmonia, address Hannikaisenkatu 23.
Xavier Ribas (1960, Spain)
Sent by Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain > Hosted by Leiden University and Paradox, with the support of the Mondriaan Foundation, The Netherlands
Greenhouse is an installation about the changing landscape of the polder Wieringermeer, some 70 kms North of Amsterdam, where Agriport is building a gigantic greenhouse complex. The large video screen shows a continuous, unedited, travelling shot from one end to the other of the greenhouse under construction. On the small screen, Lenie and Reinier Muller (one of the three families who sold their land to Agriport) speak of their memories related to this place.