OUR STORIES OF LOVE AND DEATH IN THE PANDEMIC
8 people in Kensal Green have lived lives tainted by confinement and bereavement for more than two years. A virus changed everything; tearing some apart whilst forcing others together. These are our stories.
A NEW DOCUMENT
With collaboration at its heart and by combining photography, film and built sets, a new form of empathetic documentary exhibition is proposed.
Making a space where visitors can ‘live’ inside the homes of the subjects, absorbing stories through still and moving imagery is a way to share experience that goes beyond the static formulations of traditional exhibitions and documentary methods, and provides a source of information and a locus for healing and growth.
A GUIDE
This website is a proposal to stage a physical exhibition of 8 intimate ‘Witness’ accounts of lives affected by the pandemic.
INSTALLATION PLANS & THE CORNER SETS
Constructed installations (Corners) are the core of the show. A visualised proposal for how these sets will look is available in the ‘Installation Plans’ section below.
Domestic ‘Corners’ are furnished and decorated in collaboration with each Witness. These installations will, respectively, feature a filmed monologue, a selection of Alex Schneideman’s photographs and some Witness-lent family snaps and artworks.
FILMED INTERVIEWS
Every Corner will feature a domestic television playing a looped Witness monologue. Visitors are encouraged to watch the monologues immersed in each domestic space.
PHOTOGRAPHY – INSTALLATIONS, LEPORELLO’S AND LARGE FORMAT
Material for each Corner is separated into 8 Witness sections.
There are three bodies of work attached to each; filmed interviews, colour portraits and large format monochrome prints.
Large format monochrome portraits and interiors will be presented in the form of 2 metre high leporellos (concertina folding frames) and large scale prints on the wall to provide a spatial alternative to the minutely detailed corner sets.
INSTALLATION PLANS
Please take a look at this series of computer-generated illustrations that outline plans to create an immersive exhibition.
The views details various components of the exhibition including; ‘Corner’ sets, large format wall mounted prints and large ‘leporellos’.
Viewers are invited to sit and relax in a recreated space, or ‘Corner’ and watch a personal account of the life of another human being as they discuss memories, experiences and reactions to life in a pandemic.
Click on images to see expanded views
NO PLACE / LIKE HOME
A PERSONAL NOTE
NP/LH is a collaborative exercise in photographic storytelling. On the one hand it is a multidimensional documentary response to lived experience of the pandemic, and on the other, it is a community based, collaborative project designed to engage people – participants and viewers – in a process of history gathering and dissemination.
I carried out filming and photography between February and May 2022. WIthout the collaboration of each participant there would be no project. I am grateful to each Witness for their intelligence and candour and I hope that we will continue to work together as NO PLACE / LIKE HOME becomes a physical reality in the near future.
Alex Schneideman, May 2022
8 TESTIMONIES
Click on colour and black and white galleries to view sets. Click again to expand to full size view and captions. Colour photography selections only are presented in sequenced order
WITNESS 1 – PETER JACKSON
Peter is 84 year. He lost his wife shortly before the pandemic. He lives with his dog Daisy in Kensal Green.
ABOUT / CONTACT
NO PLACE / LIKE HOME has been devised, photographed and filmed by Alex Schneideman in 2022 and forms his major project submission towards a Masters Degree in Photojournalism and Documentary at the London College of Communication (LCC), part of the University of the Arts London (UAL).
Alex Schneideman is a photographer and professional photographic printer living in London.
For more information please contact:
alex@flowphotographic.com
07909 964 534
alexschneideman.net