The Crossing Lines group met online on March 3rd with eleven people participating.

There were two presentations; the first from Vancouver based photographer, Sara Faridamin, presenting her London series from A Lived Temporality. Sara writes:

“A Lived Temporality is two series of photographs narrating my experiences of moving to two new cities – London and Montreal. I presented the first chapter, London, made between October 2011 and June 2012 at different times of the day and week. It shows people on the street passing by my window, where I was based in South East London.

As a street photographer, I was interested in exploring everyday life and the relation between time, place and space of the street. Henri Lefebvre’s book Writing on Cities and his experience of what he saw from his window that had a view of the street, of a big junction in Paris, made me question the importance and the difference of being on the street or viewing the street from a distance as a photographer.

The results were visual narratives of everyday life in urban space reflecting my interest in coming to a new place. Being a newcomer, the trivial matters to others became my everyday surprises and astonishments. Over time, the street behaviours and events that I witnessed through the frame of my window shifted from being strange to ordinary and banal”.

The discussion that followed showed great interest in her project and we hope that Sara will return to show her Montreal series at some point in the future.

The evening continued with David Killeen’s presentation of new work made in collaboration with author Patrick Quinlan documenting twenty-one psychiatric hospitals (mental asylums) across the Republic of Ireland. Constructed between 1814 and 1922 they represent one of the largest public programmes ever undertaken in Ireland. Government policy over 30 years has seen the population of these institutions fall from over 20,000 people to almost zero by 2013. David writes:

“Today, the buildings are husks of their former selves, the patients and staff who once animated them are now gone, leaving only remnants of an institution that once was. There is a motivation on our part, a particular sense of urgency to document as much as possible within the narrow window still open to us, before many of these buildings deteriorate past the point of no return.

Numerous photographers have documented institutions such as these from different perspectives, but all too often with an unhealthy focus on the more stygian aspects of these places. From the outset, I wished to achieve a more balanced view, to record the subtleties and the nuances, the flashes of colour and texture, the moments of unexpected beauty. Yet on the whole, I cannot deny that the combination of grand scale and unwieldy layout made for a weighted atmosphere verging on the oppressive, a sensation encountered to a greater or lesser extent in each of these buildings”.

Zoom continues to be a good platform for these engaging and lively Crossing Lines discussions and new members are very welcome! Next meeting will be the first Wednesday in April.

Peter