Emily Richardson, still from film 3 Church Walk
Last week saw the In Place of Architecture Symposium at Nottingham Trent University. organised by Andy Lock and Fiona Maclaren- accompanying an exhibition (still on at the University's Bonington Gallery) of the work of a number of artist-photographers working with the theme. Several of them, including Peter Ainsworth, Guy Moreton and Esther Johnson presented their work at the Symposium, and one of the highlights was the work of Emily Richardson- her film of the modernist house of H. T. Cadbury-Brown- empty, abandoned, taken over by time, is an elegaic piece of power and subtlety. This very worthwhile event was hopefully the first of a series of explorations on the theme of artists working with architecture as their material.
Carolyn Butterworth licking the Barcelona Pavilion Photograph Emma Cheatle 1992
I was asked to give the Keynote speech, which was titled Image and Counter-Image: architecture and its narratives: it dealt with the dominant narrative of photographing architectural form, and counterpointed that with some alternative readings of architecture and its imaging. Nigel Henderson's work, as ever, went down very well. And an extended discussion of the photography of the Barcelona Pavilion was enlivened by the image of Carolyn Butterworth licking the Pavilion, a critique of architecture and its photography on several levels.