Studio/Location Photographs focusses on the the image of the contemporary shopping mall, juxtaposing photographs of uninhabited locations shot in Paris with images of actor/models taken in a film studio. Pictured in sets whose construction purposely echoes the architectural qualities of the urban spaces photographed, the behaviour of the actor/models in the studio photographs moves between ennacted and un-posed, drawing parallels between people’s uneasy relation to public space in everyday life and how a model finds ‘a way to be’ in the theatrical context of the photo-shoot. In Studio/ Location Photographs with its focus on the artificial quality of urban settings, the distinction between documentary and studio based approaches to photography becomes becomes fluid and hard to determine.

The series was initiated in response to research into Walter Benjamin’s unfinished ARCADES PROJECT and was developed whilst on residency at the Paris based Centre Internationale de Recollets (2008). Produced and shown in the context of the the financial crash of 2008, the spaces pictured in the series seems to appear to collapse references to the glamour of high fashion into the manifestation of destitution and neglect.

EXCERPT FROM INTERVIEW WITH MARK DURDEN IN SOURCE MAGAZINE Issue 64 :

MD. In Studio/ Location Photographs you have spoken of looking for something between enacted and uposed. Can you expand upon this and say how you achieved it?

SD. In Studio/ Location Photographs I am interested in the way an image shifts quite radically between the when the model is openly acknowledging the camera and when they are not. The former relates more to the tradition of portraiture and is in a sense more honest about the conditions of the production of the image, the latter is a more illusionistic way of working, creating a mis-en-scene. My work over recent years has moved back and forth between these approaches. In the studio I made a modular set that loosely referred to the locations pictured. Where the actor/models stood and how was dictated by the architecture of the set itself. This echoes the way in which the design of public space in the city dictates people’s use - isolated corners invite illicit rendezvous, alcoves aplace for a homeless person to rest etc.

SD. In developing the series I spent a lot of time in shopping malls in England and in France and observing how people behave in these places. How the models were pictured within these sets came primarily from my observations of people’s behaviour in the malls I visited. In the dynamic that develops between the location and the studio pictures photographs I wanted to draw parallels between peoples uneasy relation to public space and the situation of being a model in a photo shoot. In the series I wanted to think about using the space of the mall to think about the identification between looking, display and commodity.

Exhibitions of Studio/ Location Photographs have taken place at:
Zurcher Galerie, Paris 8 November 2008 - 6 January 2009 Works Projects, Bristol 2 May - 13 June 2009
Theatres of the Real, Antwerp Provincie FotoMuseum 19 June - 13 September 2009 Based on a True Story, Artsway, New Forest July - September 2010 A Fire is Set in His Masters House, Chapter Arts July - September 2010

Reviews & Interview

Excerpt from Theatres of the Real INSERT LINK
Interview with Mark Durden in Source Magazine. Issue 64 Read Full Text

PUBLICATION: Theatres of the Real Artists: Sarah Dobai, Annabel Elgar, Tom Hunter, Sarah Pickering, Nigel Shafran, Mitra Tabrizian Authors: Jan Baetens, David Green & Joanna Lowry PHOTOWORKS. ISBN 9781903796269 Hardback Pages 112 230mm x 170mm https://www.cornerhousepublications.org/publications/theatres-of-the-real/#:~:text=Theatres%20of%20the%20Real%20presents,hallucinatory%20vision%20of%20contemporary%20Britain.