'There Was Much Interruption', in Carte de Visite, Hollybush Gardens
4 Dec 2015 - 23 Jan 2016
'I remember
dark chambers light-filled rooms
those who observe the moving spectacle in the darkened camera obscura
note the flickering images
the branches moving in the wind shifting in and out of focus
the glimmering dance spectacle of moving water
look this way
don’t smile
turn toward the light close your eyes' - Ingrid Pollard
See here to read Pollard's full text for the mini publication to accompany the exhibition. And here for more information on the exhibition on the Hollybush Gardens website.
dark chambers light-filled rooms
those who observe the moving spectacle in the darkened camera obscura
note the flickering images
the branches moving in the wind shifting in and out of focus
the glimmering dance spectacle of moving water
look this way
don’t smile
turn toward the light close your eyes' - Ingrid Pollard
See here to read Pollard's full text for the mini publication to accompany the exhibition. And here for more information on the exhibition on the Hollybush Gardens website.
'The stories within the walls' - Christine Eyene on Ingrid Pollard
Imagine a room in a 19th century French castle. The door is closed. You take a first look around to get familiar with the space that will be your home for a month or so. Overtime, there is one feature to which you keep on returning: the wallpaper and its motives. It is on the walls of her residency bedroom, at Chateau de Sacy in Sacy-le-Petit, Northern France, that the visual narrative created by Ingrid Pollard first took shape. Toile de Jouy is not an unusual feature in traditional aristocratic interiors. A quick search indicates that it is a type of decorating motif applied to white or plain fabrics or wallpapers, on which is repeated a pattern usually depicting pastoral scenes. Originally produced in Ireland in the mid-18th century, it became popular in Britain and France and, by the late 18th century, was known as Toile de Jouy, owing to its production in Jouy-en-Josas, west of the Parisian region.
It is worth highlighting that Jouy-en Josas is located just two miles from Versailles and, as such, has always benefited from its proximity to the jewel of what was then the French kingdom: the Palace of Versailles. To the ostentatious lifestyle one would imagine common to such environment can be added the very name of the town “Jouy”, a direct translation of the Latin gaudium, meaning “joy” and, in contemporary French, a conjugated form “jouis/joui” the definition of which range from the innocent “enjoyment” to orgasmic “coming”.
Having a bit of a background of this very connoted wallpaper helps frame the reading of Ingrid’s new compositions. It allows a better understanding of the other side of the story. The Chateau de Sacy was converted from what had previously been a farm building for two centuries, just a few decades after Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf set up his Toile de Jouy factory, in the town from which it bears its name. Both are contemporary. Behind the decorative wall piece, behind the floral arrangements, the rural scene, or the depiction of affectionate moments between couples, lies the reality of those who worked the land, who worked in the factories, who picked the cotton used in the making of the fabric used in Jouy, and the domestic servants who tended to the masters who owned the land, the factories, and whose walls and windows were covered in this fashionable item.
Ingrid’s new series revolves exactly around the notion of work but in the present time. Her wallpapers are both a medium and part of an assemblage bringing together composite visual elements including portraits, rural archi- tecture, flowers, keys, and abstract motifs. The workers’ portraits taken in Sacy, Lancashire, or Ghana, are all moments of interruption, the camera acting as an instrument of a gentle intrusion. In her work, Ingrid uses images that she took as well as archive photographs. She does not consider her photography work as being distinct from that of the man in Ghana creating patterns of a fabric, no more than the man handling a chainsaw, or pushing a wheelbarrow while wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt – coincidental but not insignificant. She sees her work as that of making pictures. She too has experienced these moments of interruption in her creative process.
Somehow this is reflected in her fragmented compositions. Each pattern could be seen from two angles: as an image of its own, or as a symbol of something more; forms calling for an interpretation, if not an iconographic analysis. Like those keys that represent the idea of access to a physical space, with the implied relationship between indoor and outdoor, as much as they do the notion of decoding. Or the mill, a structure transforming raw material, turning water into a power generating resource and, in the context of Lancashire, a symbol of the industrial revolution with its links to colonisa- tion, in addition to signifying repetitive work.
And then there are those abstract shapes and textures open to free inter- pretation. Seeing and imagining are part of the experience Ingrid seeks to provoke in the viewer. She opted for a camera obscura to this effect. An antique optical device popularised in the 18th century – just likethe Toile de Jouy – the darkened chamber affects the image, notably in its focus and depth of field. It also gives it a unique texture.
Using a tent-size camera obscura, Ingrid interrogates the way we observe things. The inverted image produced by the optical system translates
the visual phenomenon as perceived by our eyes not our brain.Beyond the portraits and symbolic forms composing her visual register, in this work Ingrid Pollard explores the very notion of gaze through the physicality of looking. Her approach of image making does not limit itself
to the notion of visual occurrence. It also investigates what happens to the brain in the mechanism of vision and seeks to make sense of that process.'
Imagine a room in a 19th century French castle. The door is closed. You take a first look around to get familiar with the space that will be your home for a month or so. Overtime, there is one feature to which you keep on returning: the wallpaper and its motives. It is on the walls of her residency bedroom, at Chateau de Sacy in Sacy-le-Petit, Northern France, that the visual narrative created by Ingrid Pollard first took shape. Toile de Jouy is not an unusual feature in traditional aristocratic interiors. A quick search indicates that it is a type of decorating motif applied to white or plain fabrics or wallpapers, on which is repeated a pattern usually depicting pastoral scenes. Originally produced in Ireland in the mid-18th century, it became popular in Britain and France and, by the late 18th century, was known as Toile de Jouy, owing to its production in Jouy-en-Josas, west of the Parisian region.
It is worth highlighting that Jouy-en Josas is located just two miles from Versailles and, as such, has always benefited from its proximity to the jewel of what was then the French kingdom: the Palace of Versailles. To the ostentatious lifestyle one would imagine common to such environment can be added the very name of the town “Jouy”, a direct translation of the Latin gaudium, meaning “joy” and, in contemporary French, a conjugated form “jouis/joui” the definition of which range from the innocent “enjoyment” to orgasmic “coming”.
Having a bit of a background of this very connoted wallpaper helps frame the reading of Ingrid’s new compositions. It allows a better understanding of the other side of the story. The Chateau de Sacy was converted from what had previously been a farm building for two centuries, just a few decades after Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf set up his Toile de Jouy factory, in the town from which it bears its name. Both are contemporary. Behind the decorative wall piece, behind the floral arrangements, the rural scene, or the depiction of affectionate moments between couples, lies the reality of those who worked the land, who worked in the factories, who picked the cotton used in the making of the fabric used in Jouy, and the domestic servants who tended to the masters who owned the land, the factories, and whose walls and windows were covered in this fashionable item.
Ingrid’s new series revolves exactly around the notion of work but in the present time. Her wallpapers are both a medium and part of an assemblage bringing together composite visual elements including portraits, rural archi- tecture, flowers, keys, and abstract motifs. The workers’ portraits taken in Sacy, Lancashire, or Ghana, are all moments of interruption, the camera acting as an instrument of a gentle intrusion. In her work, Ingrid uses images that she took as well as archive photographs. She does not consider her photography work as being distinct from that of the man in Ghana creating patterns of a fabric, no more than the man handling a chainsaw, or pushing a wheelbarrow while wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt – coincidental but not insignificant. She sees her work as that of making pictures. She too has experienced these moments of interruption in her creative process.
Somehow this is reflected in her fragmented compositions. Each pattern could be seen from two angles: as an image of its own, or as a symbol of something more; forms calling for an interpretation, if not an iconographic analysis. Like those keys that represent the idea of access to a physical space, with the implied relationship between indoor and outdoor, as much as they do the notion of decoding. Or the mill, a structure transforming raw material, turning water into a power generating resource and, in the context of Lancashire, a symbol of the industrial revolution with its links to colonisa- tion, in addition to signifying repetitive work.
And then there are those abstract shapes and textures open to free inter- pretation. Seeing and imagining are part of the experience Ingrid seeks to provoke in the viewer. She opted for a camera obscura to this effect. An antique optical device popularised in the 18th century – just likethe Toile de Jouy – the darkened chamber affects the image, notably in its focus and depth of field. It also gives it a unique texture.
Using a tent-size camera obscura, Ingrid interrogates the way we observe things. The inverted image produced by the optical system translates
the visual phenomenon as perceived by our eyes not our brain.Beyond the portraits and symbolic forms composing her visual register, in this work Ingrid Pollard explores the very notion of gaze through the physicality of looking. Her approach of image making does not limit itself
to the notion of visual occurrence. It also investigates what happens to the brain in the mechanism of vision and seeks to make sense of that process.'