IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section B

Abstract

This paper will address the research question in the context of my artistic practise. Lost Edinburgh an exhibition at the City Arts Centre Edinburgh a cultural, political, and artistic view past and present. Incorporating traditional film and digitally manipulated images to argue that history is hugely significant to cultural heritage and public perception. In the 1970s and early 1980s I photographed interiors of an Edinburgh that was disappearing. I will address the question. These images we’re not created to be documents for posterity, although the perception by the public was of perceiving the past as remembrance of neighbourhood bonds and community ties. They are seen as nostalgic a lost past in the gentrification of traditional neighbourhoods. I will examine the dichotomy between public perception and an artistic view. There is a theatricality in these images that transcends the document. Reminiscent of Eugène Atget (1857 – 1927) photographs of Paris and what is striking about these images is the urban solitude and emptiness of people, but they are not devoid of power. The digitally manipulated images of recent research are connected to Scotland’s national identity and Scottish referendum and politically linked to the questions and issues typical of the Catalonia region. The 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix was the basis for a digitally manipulated image depicting the Scottish referendum.
The research aims to comprehend artistic endeavour with public perception.