"Walking to nowhere. The Island within the Island."
Artist: Al Brydon
Project: The Code for Flowers. The Last Star to Shine
Book published by Another Place Press (preorder)
Light is a necessity and a preoccupation for the work I make. It fascinates me that one day there won't be any and the universe will return to darkness. This work is about endings, and, of course, new beginnings. but also about identity and place. Not only my own physical place in the aforementioned uncaring, utterly indifferent universe, but the landscape I've been inhabiting and closely experiencing for the last three years making this body of work. Being mindful and ultimately present in the landscape and allowing myself to be swept along with it, the subtle changes that occur over the seasons and with the passage of time. Some of the places I visited (often multiple times over the years) are not even there any more, certainly not in the state I photographed them in originally.
There's an element of mourning to the loss of a place one feels compelled to photograph, though I understand some of these places were never meant to be anything but transitory. For me, it raises the question of why I photograph and what I'm unconsciously trying to achieve by making a record of it in the first place? There are so many reasons obviously, visually, mentally, how a place makes me feel and how I feel when I photograph that same place. Then I try to convey that meaning to the viewer in the hope there's at least a vague connection between us. Isn't that what this is, or at least should be, all about? Small personal interconnections made possible by the imperfect medium of photography? Perhaps it doesn't matter or is the only thing that matters.
To be outside can't be forever but it can be now. On this island I both love and loathe...
© Al Brydon
Curator / Editor : Noemi Carrara