Prof John Kippin
Biography
John Kippin is an artist and photographer who lives and works in Newcastle. He is perhaps best known for his photographic landscape work. He studied Fine Art at Brighton and Newcastle and has a PhD from the University of Northumbria. He has worked as a photographer within the commercial and educational sectors. He was a member of the Basement Group of Artists during the 1980's and has continued to work closely with Locus Plus (A Newcastle-based arts organisation).
John Kippin is interested making work that responds to a range of contemporary cultural and political issues and in developing the impact of photography using colour, scale and texts. His work has been widely exhibited in the UK and overseas and he has produced a number of books and contributed to numerous conferences. He has overseen the development and delivery of the IPRN (International Photography Research Network) the NEPN (North East Photography Network).
In addition to his exhibition and publication work he is interested in Public Art projects and has made a wide range of works involving photography, installation and sound and has recently been involved with a major billboard project in Essen with the Folkwang Hochschule and is currently developing a number of public arts projects.
He is currently Professor in Photography at the University of Sunderland, Chair of the Association of Photography in Higher Education and a trustee of Locus Plus.
Research Interests
John Kippin is interested making work that responds to a range of contemporary cultural and political issues and in developing the impact of photography and audiences using colour and scale, frequently in combination with texts. He is interested in Public Art projects and has made a wide range of works within a wide range of public non-gallery contexts involving mostly photography but occasionally including installation and sound elements. Much of his work has developed through an interest in Landscape and addresses the ways in which the appearance of the landscape reflects economic and social influences and changes.
Research Activities (selected projects)
CHOBI MELA, The First Festival of Photography in South Asia, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2000
This is a major solo retrospective exhibition of works dating from 1998 - 2000.
I was invited to take part in the exhibition as the British representative. The exhibition consisted of large-scale framed photographic prints giving an overview of my photographic practice to date. The exhibition was funded by the British Council and consisted of 30 colour images approximately 60 x 50 inches framed and installed in the Chitrok Gallery in Dhaka and subsequenly in Sri Lanka. Much of the work was drawn from earlier exhibitions and was curated by Sean Williams in conjunction with myself at the British Council in London. The particular emphasis of the exhibition was to give an insight into British landscape and culture to a mostly Asian audience. To this end the exhibition was selected to not only fairly represent my work to date but to communicate a broad range of cultural, political and aesthetic issues to its audience. The exhibition was accompanied by a substantial publication entitled Differences Unframed within which five works are reproduced.
COLD WAR PASTORAL / S.S.S.I. GREENHAM COMMON
Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, London, 2000/1
SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) was a solo exhibition that was shown at the Imperial War Museum In London in 2000. It comprised seventeen large-scale colour photographic images approximately 50 x 60 inches in size. When installed at the Imperial War Museum it was accompanied by a video and sound work. The exhibition was subsequently installed on Greenham Common. The space was converted with the aid of funding from the Arts Council of England. Later in 2005 the work was exhibited at the Side Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne.
In addition to the exhibition SSSI, with the collaboration of Art Point in Oxford and the Arts Council I was able to develop two posters, one to publicise the exhibition and the events which were complimentary to it, the other was an editioned poster conceived as an autonomous public art work to commemorate the (re) opening of Greenham Common to the public. The exhibition was accompanied by public presentations at the common and in Newbury. The publication Cold War Pastoral ISBN No 1 901033 97 x was published in 2001 by Black Dog Publications, London. It contained a photographic narrative and essays from Liz Wells, Mark Durden, Sarah Hipperson and Ed Cooper. The publication was conceived of as a complete `work of photography' exploring a range written contributions accompanied by visual narrative of the images. It is designed to engage with debates around landscape, our ideological identification with it, the ethical position of a civilization that possesses nuclear weapons and the idea of the pastoral. It was later case studied in the publication Reviews, Artists and Public Space ISBN No 1 904772 20 X Works from Cold War Pastoral have been widely reproduced and presented at talks and conferences. Much of the work is within the collection of West Berkshire County Council.
COMPTON VERNEY 2004
The publication Compton Verney, ISBN No 0 9546545-3-6 was the final stage of a residency at Compton Verney in Warwickshire. The work comprises fifty colour photographic images arranged in a narrative sequence and printed on uncoated art paper. The format for the book was designed by Alison Barratt, a University of Sunderland lecturer in Design. The book has been conceived as a site-specific work of art and is only available at Compton Verney where visitors are free to encounter it in the visitors shop.
The publication is not distributed through any other source. Other works relating to this project comprised an editioned poster (16, 000) that was distributed free of charge in Contemporary Art magazine. And café and atrium pieces. Other major works were a series of three billboard posters situated at Lemington Spa railway station and at Paradise Square in Birmingham. One of these sites was of conventional design, the other, in Birmingham,was backlit.
These sites were selected because of their particular historical relevance to Compton Verney and the three works were shown sequentially. The images depicted various elements of Compton Verney together with a text referring the viewer to a website address. Their was additional work available on the website together with an essay (written by myself) The English Country House. Work from this exhibition has been recently included in Uneasy Spaces an exhibition curated by Liz Wells at the Washington Square Gallery, New York University and is likely to tour to Russia next year. I have give a number of public talks and conference presentations on this project including at the University of New York. The overall aim of the project is to to place the English Country House and aspects of its representation and rhetoric within a critical historical, landscape and cultural context.
Installation JAYWICK MARTELLO TOWER, Clacton on Sea, 2005
The installation comprises twenty-six various sized canvasses accompanied with texts, with a large central image wrapped around a central column of approximately 20 x 8 feet. It is accompanied by a sound installation. This public art work is situated within a Martello Tower build in the early part of the 19th Century to defend the Essex coast from Napoleonic invasion. It was opened in September 2005 and is currently open and being managed by Essex County Council. This installation is the final part (to date) of a project entitled Coast a major public art initiative devised and developed by Commissions East in Cambridge. Initially I produced an exhibition at First Site at the Minories Art Gallery in Colchester. Subsequently I produced an editioned poster of 20,000 that was distributed by Art Review together with essay that was available at the gallery and on the Coast website.
From these works I was invited by Essex County Council to develop a work for installation at the Jaywick Martello Tower. Initially I had concentrated on photographing historic military sites on the Essex Coast. In addition to the exhibition this resulted in the publishing of a set of postcards that were distributed in a range of public outlets including tourist outlets and visitor centres free of charge. Additional images were available on the website and readers of Essex Matters (a free newspaper delivered to every house in Esssex) were invited to send for a free poster should they want one. My essay Landscape, Essex and Identity developed some of the critical themes present within the work that centres around the relationship between landscape critical borders and personal and political identities. Work developed from this installation was included in North and South at the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton during 2007.
HE Book Publication 2010 ISBN 978-0-9564392-0-8
He is a publication about fathers. It is based on the idea of revisiting places that I associate with my father. These are special places that exist through my memory and association with them. They are places that my father (who died in 2002) would `understand'. By constructing these `landscapes', regular enough in appearance, I have attempted to link the making the work as a meditative and personal process with the wider, more objective currency of the images relating to a broader photographic landscape practice. My belief is that although the work has to a certain extent a very personal meaning, I, together with my co-author (Professor) David Chandler, it has been possible to create an inter-subjective experience regarding death and loss, reflecting upon the relationship of the living to the dead by entering a discourse between the metaphorical life of the landscape and our experiences of and reaction to memory.
In this book the two different and intertextual narratives wind there way in and out of one another, often offering up unexpected echoes, or images and situations that resonate strangely together. The reader is taken from place to place, through interior and exterior, and between past and present, in a way that, we feel, reflects not only our personal histories but also something of a wider, social shared one. Overall the book aims to explore the ambiguities of texts and of images in revealing their stories and it has become an experiment in making a different kind of publication; one that synthesizes memory, prose and photography. He is published by Havelock Press, Brighton, distributed by Cornerhouse and was exhibited at Trace Gallery, Cornwall in 2011. This work was presented as part of the Exhibiting Photography International Conference at the University of Westminster in 2011.
LOCAL Book Publication 2010 ISBN 9780955747878
Local combines a diverse photographic narrative with written commentary and reflection on the relationships between local people , ocal councils and local politicians. The perceptions that surround local government are explored and the extended essay by political analyst Dr. Henry Kippin discusses the relationship between politics at a local level and its relationship to central government. It develops the theme of our disengagement with and our loss of confidence in the political process, both at a local and national level and considers how we might be encouraged to reconnect with the democratic process that supposedly, we are so committed to. The publication looks at the possibility of a realignment of local politics, politicians and the business of councils and develops a visual rhetoric that juxtaposes council employees, council processes (such as cabinet and council meetings) and the local environment alongside one another. Local was developed and photographed during an artist-in-residence programme at Cumbria County Council during 2008. Local is a publication that is designed to engage a range of different audiences. It allows those associated with the council to look at themselves whilst allowing those on the outside to reflect anew on the work of the County Council. It contains 190 pages and includes an introductory essay by John Kippin, 80 photographic images and an essay entitled On the Politics of the Local by Dr. Henry Kippin. Local was published by Art Editions North with the aid of the Arts Council of England, Cumbria County Council and the University of Sunderland. This work was presented as part of the Exhibiting Photography International Conference at the University of Westminster in 2011.
UNTO this LAST Website exhibition 2006\7
Unto this Last was commissioned by the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. It comprises a web-based work that was made as an artistic response to the Ruskin School's teaching collection and catalogues that John Ruskin assembled for his Oxford drawing schools. The work comprises three elements that coexist within the web environment. The work is presented as a PDF file that exists in four parts to coincide with Ruskin's own numbered pedagogic collections. There is a sequence of photographic images that are accompanied by Ruskin's own texts outlining his position on a number of the important political and cultural questions of his day. These texts of key issues within Ruskin's time were chosen because they resonate within our own time and they are presented together with a voice-over soundtrack read by a young girl, itself a commentary on the life and interests of John Ruskin. Unto this Last is a commentary on contemporary polititical and cultural values and much of its force derives from the contemporary resonance of the tensions between commercial and cultural imperatives. Through art the intention is to create a discursive space in which current political concerns can be historically contextualised and re-viewed and contemplated within the light of contemporary experience. It is a commentary that is grounded in the philosophical positition of the notion of 'quality' and uses an innovative format to reconsider the role of the artist in society whilst offering a new platform and range of associations from which to weigh the importance of Ruskin's thinking.