9 Jun 2010

Annette Smith

Annette Smith Bath Fresh Pet Meat Daily
Photo: Annette Smith

On the back of my post about the interview in Bath for BBC Radio 4’s Making History program I have been contacted by Bath artist and photographer Annette Smith.  By pure coincidence she currently has an exhibition running until this weekend at the Octagon in Bath as part of the ‘Fringe Arts Bath’ festival.

She describes her work as “an investigation into the nature of photography as it relates to the passage of time as lived experience”, clearly echoing the theme of Ghostsigns and with links to the efforts that have been made in capturing surviving signs photographically for the archive.

The focus of this exhibition are her “long exposure pinhole photographs” of fading signs and their host buildings around the city, all taken with “cameras made from redundant household containers and paper negatives”. In addition to this quite raw approach she also notes that “only the immediate environment of the site, for example existing street furniture and walls, to support the camera, so that these locations can speak visually for themselves”.

Sadly I didn’t know about this before my visit to Bath last week, otherwise I could have gone along and written a more detailed review. Annette’s information leaflet is attached and you can catch the exhibition upto and including this Sunday.

For more artistic interpretations of Ghostsigns and other related themes have a look at some of these posts.

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