“…All in all you’re just another brick in the wall…..” – Pink Floyd, The Wall
This series is part of the ongoing ‘The Photo Course’ project. I wanted to do something which reflects the ‘void’ that I experience every year at this particular time, when I say goodbye to another group of students that I have worked with in the college. I can only describe this void as something akin to the end of a relationship, when there is an over-riding feeling of sad reflection – an uneasy emptiness at a time of transition.
There is a sense of vacancy about my series of blank exhibiting boards, for instance. They are taken just after the students take their work down after their end of year show. The little squares are one half of the hanging mechanisms which remain attached after the work is stripped from the boards. This work is not about resentment or antipathy towards students or towards my job. Its about ‘detachment’. It speaks of a certain reality of these transient, ephemeral relationships which are built year upon year between myself and my students. In a way, it is my attempt to deal with the departure of people who I have invested so much paternal energy and time into - ‘facilitating learning’ as the textbooks proclaim. This series reflects that point of departure. Maybe that feeling that is manifest in me has to do with the reality that these boards and those half hanging mechanisms are all that is physically left for me after my yearly investments in other peoples work. There is also the reality of times relentless melt and the passing of yet another year.
The following images were taken on my last day, when the building was empty and I floated around aimlessly looking for..'something':
June 2nd 2010The following Images were taken before and after and around some of my classes with this years graduates (September 2008 - May 2010).
Sept 29th 2008. Class 3. Notes
After 907 class. Feb 2009
Sept 2008.