Alan Gignoux (Great Britain) is a multimedia artist that uses portrait and abstract photography, video and sound (interviews) to allow people to bring awareness to socio political and environmental issues. Artist says: „My work has not brought a landslide of change but has changed perceptions, person-by-person; community-by-community that could bring about that landslide”. Alan Gignoux has been working as a professional documentary photographer since 2000 and prior to that as a documentary researcher and journalist. Demonstrating a commitment to recording the effects of occupation and displacement on individual communities in different parts of the world, including the Middle East, North Africa and Canada, through long-term photographic projects. Best known body of work, Homeland Lost, is a series of photo essays looking at long-term refugee situations throughout the world. The first in the series looks at the Palestinian situation and has been exhibited extensively in the Middle East and Europe, including the Barbican, London and the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam as part of the group exhibition “Palestine 1948: Remembering a Past Homeland.” Born in the United States, Alan lives and works in London. Read more about the artist – www.gignouxphotos.com
Artist about residency:
I have just spent a wonderful month researching and working on an exhibition highlighting the contentious issue of forestry management, the final body of work will be shown during the autumn of 2018. Why did I choose the forests? over the past month I have travelled extensively around Latvia photographing the mundane, the buildings, the people, the landscape and just discovering the country from the beautiful Baltic coast to Latvia’s recent history, Homo Sovieticus.
After much deliberation, I came to the conclusion that the forest clearly identifies the Latvian identity and how clear cutting is raising contentious questions of economic necessity? The final body of work will consist of an exhibition of prints, a multimedia piece combining stills/audio and a possible zine of creative pinhole images for sale that will contribute towards Latvian environmental issues. I spent last month interviewing foresters, concerned citizens and people who are just curious about the forests to produce a body of work to provoke a debate and allow the viewer to come to their own conclusion.
