The Genesis Postgraduate Bursary Award – Winner:
Nicholas Holt London College of Communication, MA Photojournalism & Documentary Photography (online)
Of his work, Nicholas comments: “My practice explores the nexus between place, time, and narrative. In particular, I am interested in the tension between human activity and the natural world. My work has a strong geographical and exploratory element to it.
My final year project, ‘Afterword,’ explores the scars of the First Industrial Revolution on the Landscape of North Wales. Afterword consists of 60 black and white images of a landscape that has been transformed by large-scale extraction of Slate. An industry that spawned towns and communities to satisfy global demand and continues to shape human narratives in the surrounding hills and valleys today.
I explore the landscape that bears the scars of this conquest by applying the practice of Psychogeography, which describes the effect of a geographical location on the emotions and behaviour of an individual. I attempt to both describe a place and leave a trace of my response to that place in the photograph. I think of these photographs, not as landscapes but more as ‘psychological spaces’. I visited each quarry site several times at different times of day and in different weather. This allowed time for the atmosphere of a place to impress itself upon me and for me to respond to it: only making a photograph when I felt a strong response to a scene.
As the project progressed, I became interested in communicating my sense of disorientation in these places by making use of the horizonless landscape. In presenting the landscape in this fragmentary way, I am also putting forward the idea that these past events cannot be represented in their entirety. “
nicholasholt.co.uk
The Genesis Postgraduate Bursary Award – Commended Entry:
Chris Lewtas, University of Falmouth
Of his work, Chris comments “‘The Illness of Missed Opportunity’ aims to create an understanding of Social anxiety and its relationship with the projected self through autobiographical self-portraits that demonstrate the symptoms and the origins of the condition. They will feature staged environments that focus on the internal reaction to shame, fear and trauma.
Largely under-researched and misunderstood, Social anxiety often externally presents as simply shyness or an unwillingness to participate. In reality, the extent of the symptoms can be debilitating and often result in a poor quality of life. Therefore, producing work that looks to raise awareness is critical. My personal experience with social anxiety has been a difficult journey from early symptoms to diagnosis in 2015, to beginning to produce work surrounding the condition for my Studies. The limitations of social anxiety have made it difficult for me to share this diagnosis with my family, friends and peers. Therefore, this project will become a vessel for my personal communication to help others understand the condition I and many others live with.
My previous work has been predominately anecdotal, using domestic settings to revisit the origins of my trauma. These images employed nostalgia to influence the audience’s interpretation. Rather than employ medical representation of social anxiety, I looked to dramatise the medical gaze through elliptical storytelling. This project will continue to use this established stylistic aesthetic. However, it will draw more inspiration from research papers and certified studies on living with Social anxiety.
I wish my images to highlight the reach of social anxiety further than just myself. By drawing a framework and effectively turning symptoms, behaviours or ‘interactions observed in controlled environments’ into fantasy images, I believe I can convey the fascinating, heartbreaking and challenging nature of social anxiety in a stimulating and memorable fashion.”
About the Genesis Postgraduate Award 2022:
The Genesis Postgraduate Award returned for its fourth year in 2022 to offer support to individuals continuing to postgraduate level. The award was open to all students currently enrolled in their final year of a postgraduate (taught) programme in the UK.
From years of experience working with students, we’re only too aware of the financial pressures faced in the production of final work. And of our responsibility to help foster new talent as leaders in production for the creative industries.
Genesis Imaging Postgraduate Award Judging Panel 2022:
Emily Allchurch, Visual Artist, working with photography
Emily Allchurch is a visual artist working with photography. She completed an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in London (1999), where she began working with photography as a material. She has since gained an international reputation for her complex digital photographic collages, presented as transparencies on lightboxes, which recreate Old Master paintings and prints to form contemporary narratives around architecture, place and culture. Solo exhibitions include Tokaido Hiroshige Museum, Japan (2014), Manchester Art Gallery (2015), Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham (2015), the Sir John Soane’s Museum, London (2018), and Pingyao International Photography Festival, China (2021). Her works are held in public and private collections worldwide including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Museum of London and Fidelity Tokyo. Allchurch was a Finalist in the 2018 Columbia Threadneedle Prize for Figurative Art, also winning the Visitors’ Choice Award.
Dr Gayle Chong Kwan, Artist
Dr Gayle Chong Kwan is a British artist whose photographic works, immersive installations, and sensory events are exhibited internationally, both in galleries and in the public realm. At the core of her practice is an expanded and embodied notion of photographic practice through which she explores simulacra, the sublime and the politics of travel, trade, and waste. She was artist in residence in Photography at the V&A (2021), and just completed a PhD in Fine Art at the Royal College of Art. Exhibitions/Awards: The People’s Forest, William Morris Gallery (2018); The Fairlop Oak, Barbican; Anthropo-scene, Bloomberg Space (2015); Wastescape, Southbank Centre (2012); The Obsidian Isle, New Forest Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale (2011); Cockaigne, Tales from the New World, 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba (2009).
Julia Fullerton-Batten, Photographer
Julia Fullerton-Batten is a worldwide acclaimed and exhibited fine-art photographer. Her body of work now encompasses twelve major projects spanning a decade of engagement in the field.
Fullerton-Batten has won countless awards for both her commercial and fine-art work, and is a Hasselblad Ambassador. She was commissioned by The National Portrait Gallery in London to shoot portraits of leading people in the UK National Health Service. These are now held there in a permanent collection. Other images are also in permanent collection at the Musee de l’Elysee, Lausanne, Switzerland. She is widely interviewed about her projects by professional photographic magazines from around the world and is sought after as a speaker at international events and as a judge for prestigious international photographic competitions.
Mark Foxwell, Creative Director at Genesis Imaging
Creative director of Genesis Imaging, Mark Foxwell, is based in London and is a photographic printer of 40 years standing, working closely with renowned Photographers and Artists. His prints have graced the walls of some of the top museums and galleries globally, including MOMA and the Tate Modern. Photography consumes him. He aims to give back as much as he has gained from this passion.
Nick Goring, Photographer + winner of the 2020 Postgraduate Bursary Award
Nick Goring is a documentary photographer whose core practice is focused on exploring our relationship with the past, both collectively and individually, and its impact on our identities. His photography is based on personal stories and shares much with the poetic tradition. Universally accessible themes of place, love and time are quietly referenced in his work, which asks us to empathise with lost narratives.
In 2020 he graduated from UAL London College of Communication with an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography with Distinction. He returned to university to pursue a formal photography education, following a 25-year career in advertising.