Year 11 photographers were taken to London to see three exhibitions on Friday 14th September.
We started in the magnificent Greenwich Royal Palaces of the National Maritime Museum for the “Great British Seaside” exhibition. Featuring photography from four very different photographers, including the great Martin Parr, students were able to see how the diverse nature of Britain has flocked to the seaside over decades and still does. Over generations and as Martin Parr says “repeating traditions but just doing it in different clothing”.
The Tate Modern currently has an exhibition called the “Shape of Light” which has such an impressive selection of images over the last 150 years of photography in the abstract form and in this exhibition they display it with work from their collection by Kandinsky, Mondrian, Brancusi and the like to help place this photography in the History of Art. It is a stunning exhibition which captivated all.
A short walk over the the Millennium Bridge and around St Paul’s on a glorious day saw us arrive at the Museum of London ready to be plunged in to late night “London nights”. This exhibition shows London nightlife from the late 19th century to today and has work in it from the famous image of St Paul’s rising up out of the smoke and dust after bombs had fallen in WWII, images of late night revelry and calm abstract filming of the Thames narrated by a survivor of the Marchioness disaster. The exhibition is challenging, captivating and beautiful.
All three exhibitions were such a contrast to each other and provided our year 11 with inspiration for their Mock exam on the theme of Fragments.
