A group of LCC MA Photography graduates are currently exhibiting their work in Shanghai.
The exhibition ‘______In The Room’, which was partly inspired by the English idiom ‘elephant in the room’, explores issues that are overlooked or ignored, or problems too difficult to talk about. The implied elephant also ties the exhibition to Elephant and Castle and the College.
Work from ‘____ In The Room’, 2015.
The students, who all graduated from MA Photography in 2014, thought about the phrase ‘elephant in the room’ and how it could be used to describe the conspiracy of silence. They explain “photography as a creative form not only reinforces the visibility of things, but also leads us to their invisible facets. In the works presented, the elephant has nowhere to hide.”
Invitation for ‘____ In The Room’, 2015.
The work in the exhibition examines three sets of ideas: visibility and invisibility, surface and content, and looking and overlooking. By exploring these oppositions the photographers wanted to subvert visual habits and question social stereotypes.
Work from ‘____ In The Room’, 2015.
We spoke to Paloma Tendero, ones of the exhibiting students, to find out a little more about how the show came together.
“The idea came in a meeting in the lead up to our graduation show. At the end of the show we had some money left over from our fund-raising, and we thought that would be best used to organise another exhibition. Many international students were from China and they were going back to their family homes at the end of the MA so we thought ‘why not organise the exhibition in Shanghai?’
Work from ‘____ In The Room’, 2015.
Work from ‘____ In The Room’, 2015.
“Once the show was confirmed for Shanghai our Chinese colleagues proposed to use a curator based in the city – this was more cost effective and encouraged media exposure.
Work from ‘____ In The Room’, 2015.
“They found two young curators, Zhang Hanlu and He Yining, that are very well-known in China at the moment and who are familiar with the press. This meant that the exhibition was well publicised.
Work from ‘____ In The Room’, 2015.
“Thanks to all the hard work of the students from China they got a really good space in V Art Centre and also secured more funding the cover any extra costs.
Work from ‘____ In The Room’, 2015.
“Back in the UK we coordinated the selection, collection and transportation of the work, as well as the correlation of information about the work. It has been a great experience working with my fellow graduates after finishing the course at LCC, especially on an international level. Now we are thinking of organising another exhibition next year, maybe in another country.”
Work from ‘____ In The Room’, 2015.