Yesterdays lecture was strange and at times unsettling. Mike Simmons spoke about his research and work on the subject of Self and Photography. It was an examination of how photography can help people cope with grieving. He found it to be especially effective with young children who had lost a parent. Some of the art work produced by the children going through this process was especially moving.
He then went onto explore some of the tragedies in his own life. The series of images he produced for the death of his mother were at one level very ordinary and yet when combined with the use of Lenticular technology became far more than this. However, this was also their Achilles heal - what part did the technology play in the power and aesthetic value of the work? He also used this technology when working with grieving family and friends of an 18 year old boy who had died on holiday.
Whilst these were interesting examples of work and an imaginative approach to making pieces of work they did raise disturbing questions - especially topical given the reality TV ending to the life of the tragic Jade Goody. Just how far should public art intrude into private grief? Should photographers act as some form of therapeutic arm to allow people deal with grief? What is the boundary between private and public grief?
In preparing the work that I have done for my project I have also discovered that the boundaries between private and public grief is changing. Todays 'cloud' generation expect to explore much more of their lives on line. They make friends, develop relationships and hatreds on line. The cloud would appear to be part of their internal as well as external being. Given this approach it comes as no surprise that I found very public outpourings with the cloud for the tragic deaths that caused the memorials I had recorded. Ten years ago these outpourings would simply not have been there.
So where does this leave the work of Mike Simmons? I am not sure. On the one hand the openness he has used in the documentation and interpretation of personal grief is very refreshing. On the other hand I still feel that there is a need to keep certain matters private. I am aware that we all have different approaches to these matters but there is a point where the boundaries between art and therapeutic support merge and what you have left is dissolution and devaluation of both. Ultimately there is no answer to this question and it needs to be a matter for the individual, and, with the 'cloud' generation, it may also be a generational thing. However, it does provide a thought provoking lecture.
