An interview with photographer Bill Jackson

Helen: Your ‘museum’ of curios features a wide range of objects that don’t appear to conform to any recognizable selection criteria. The objects can’t easily be identified as ‘belonging together’ in the way that collections usually do, yet each object clearly has a significance or relevance for you. Is that significance perhaps that you see in each object the potential to be transformed into something else through your photography? Or do they have some other quality (or qualities) that consciously or subconsciously attracts you to them?

Bill: All objects have the potential to be transformed and my attraction is based on the qualities that each object inherently has. I am drawn to objects that have a conscious or a subconscious meaning to me either from the past as objects that I desired at some point or have some iconic status for me through cultural or apolitical significance. Another reason for choosing an object is what they are made of and how time may have affected them such as marks or damage made by others. The best way to describe this is to take a book and compare its electronic version. When you go into a second hand book shop and pick up a title that attracts you, time will often have played a part in how you assess it. It maybe that someone has annotated it and it makes you aware of its importance to that reader. A CD or e book cannot give you that experience. Or a dress that has been repaired or has been stained in some way that gives it a social history. Suddenly that object is not just about design or about materials but about a series of actions that relate to a previous existence. It has been left, abandoned or sold to third parties and in that there is a sadness. I do not collect like you would a pack of chewing gum cards as you did as a child; it’s more about the collection of past lives. A good example of this is that I was given a suitcase belonging to one person and in that suitcase was most of that persons life related through letters, documents and photographs and it makes you wonder how it got ‘lost’ and was not in the hands of relatives. It maybe that people do not treasure objects which hold memories but only in its monetary value – and that’s sad. I see in part my role as a preserver of things that prove that that person existed.

H: You present your images as ‘objects’, placing them in display boxes for example, so there is the transition from object to image and the image is then in turn is presented as a new object. Is there is an implication that these new images/objects might themselves become collectable items?

B: Yes that is the total essence of this particular work. I have always had a problem with taking the photograph away from its context and sticking into a frame. Photography has a contextual function i.e a documentary photograph is usually seen in publishing environments such as magazines or newspapers. That, in turn, is picked up by artists who then transform its function into an art object by putting it into a frame and displaying it in a gallery. Does that then change the role and meaning of that photograph? One of the reasons I got frustrated with photography was how my work should be seen. In 1986 this resulted in me not working directly with photography but in video, film and multi media. As all things have their limitations, after 20 years I saw the limitations in the electronic image and returned to paper based prints. By now digital print had come of age. But the reasons I left were still there. This work aims to address some of those problems I had, so turning the object into a photograph which in itself is an object and then back into an object was very important. You could say that a frame is also an object but the common usage of frames detracts the viewer from the object quality of the photographic print hence my particular way of ‘framing’ Cabinet Of Curiosities. The Relic series alludes to photographic glass or forensic specimen slides. The objects are photographed in daylight without any so called creative lighting. It has more in common with industrial photography than art photography. Head is a series of prints on paper, which have an intrinsic quality of ‘objectness’, and I wanted them to be seen as such, so putting them into frames was not an option. My dealer suggested box frames but when I discovered  some hand crafted Entomology boxes, made usually for butterflies, it was the perfect solution. The fact that the boxes have been custom made rather than off the shelf also appealed to me. The prints are pinned with entomology pins into the box. Imaginary People was a series which I originally saw as life size and it’s only now that I have been able to realize that . In displaying them, we came up with the idea of using a super size metal coat hanger. The print is hung with bull dog clips which have been distressed in acid and rain water to give a found object quality to them. It’s all about the object being objectified through photography.

H: Many of the objects you feature are pretty old. Is there an underlying nostalgia in this stuff? Are you attempting to breathe new life into discarded things? Would you consider using newer objects in this way?

B: I have started with my own collection of objects where the age range is very wide. The life I breathe into them is by forcing the viewer to re-evaluate them through this forensic investigation. There may well be an underlying nostalgia. I am of a particular age born into a post war world where we did not have the money to randomly buy things. What you bought was very often second hand or passed on stuff from others, ‘New’ was often not an option because of finance. There was no credit. There was the ‘never never’ but you tended to save and pay. Once bought you looked after it because you could not afford another one. Things were repaired not trashed. As the western world got more affluent our relationship with ‘things’ changed so we did throw away and we stopped recycling. Our attitudes changed dramatically. Poverty makes us natural recyclers – affluence makes us space junkies. We live in a world where that has been turned up side down. I recycle by creating new objects which offer new interpretations. As for looking at new? Of course but I have to evaluate what I get from new products which would be different to how I respond to ‘nostalgic’ artifacts.

H: Is there any continuity between your early work and this more recent work?

B: Most definitely and it’s a question often asked. If you look at my early photographic work which was either working as a street or documentary portrait photographer, and you look at them as photographic objects you see that my street ( sometimes the beach scenes) were really postcards and my portraits were really a collection of people that fitted into a set of gum cards. My portrait project of 1984 which was seen in various guises at The Photographers Gallery, The Impressions Gallery and The Barbican were essentially a collection of people shot in a particular style more to do with forensic or anthropological documentation than a personal response to humanity.

H: Do you consider photography i.e. the act of documentation, a form of collecting?

B: Yes for me it is. It may not be the reason why others take photographs but for me it is. It’s a collection of other peoples lives whether through the objects they own, or as in my Biographica series, the spaces they live in and the objects they collect around them. The Biographica series is a collection of narratives which are retold through object space and time and are framed as large scale panoramic prints which was again a conscious decision to us a format that had meaning to the photograph. When seen, these large scale prints give the illusion that you are peeking through a letterbox of someones front door and you are taking the role of a peeper. It may be a cliché but they say that you judge or are judged by the things one collects through your life. Through that we are somehow defined. It is a concept I subscribe to.

H: Do you feel that these objects reveal something new when removed from any sense of context and viewed under photographic studio conditions?

B: In a way they must do. They have been selected, they have been ‘hung’ ( all the objects have been suspended on invisible fishing line) in broad daylight to expose as much about them as I can. We look at objects in other contexts so they are surrounded by other things. The light could be artificial or at different times of the day. That in itself changes how you see the object. I did not want to make any false presumptions about the objects. In that way you maybe seeing them for the first time. I certainly thing I am.

H: Does the lack of context in a studio situation differ at all from that in a gallery environment?

B: Yes my studio is not a gallery and removing them into such will have an effect more like a museum which in part is what the work is a comment on. We take artifacts out of context and put them into galleries and museums which changes how we feel about them and makes them more important because they have been selected. They will also change if put back into a home environment. In the Relic series I want people to own more than one. I want them to create their own Cabinet Of Curiosities. I want them to change them around as they have been designed to move about at will. Each object works individually but also changes when put next to another.

H: What do you do with the objects after you’ve photographed them?

B: Works which are created for the camera such as Head and Imaginary do not exist anymore in that they are broken down and reused elsewhere or they are simply ‘lost’ again. As for the objects in Relics. Some will just be recycled or even taken to the recycle centre. I have yet to decide. One of the problems I have is that I cannot throw things away. I keep the most ridiculous things in case I need them again. I know I could be a psychologist’s dream but its an area I must address. How to let go of my ‘crap’ collection. I thought photographing them would be a way of being able to let go but it hasn’t happened yet.

H: Would you ever consider displaying the objects themselves alongside the images you’ve created of them?

B: It has been discussed but its pointless in a way because I am making new objects. You do not need to see where they come from. People have expressed a desire, especially for my creations or sculptures, to see the real artifact but my work is not about those particular artifacts but the photographic artifact that comes out of it. I was once asked by a curator in San Francisco for several of my Imaginary People pieces. They thought they were paper hangings and not photographs of paper hangings. At first they were a little disappointed but were happy when they realized they were large scale wall hangings. That’s the danger of the web when people see only virtual representations. I make, I photograph, I destroy.

H: From a commercial perspective it would seem that the image has more value than the original object. What do you think about this? Are you imbuing the objects with more meaning by photographing them?

B: You are most definitely. Take for example the medical torso that Hirst re invented, the cost of the original was only a few pounds but he sold for a million. The material that Picasso painted with, cost only a few shilling but the result is worth multi millions. It’s always going to be the case. The artist selects and interprets the world around them. That is where the real value lies not in the actuality but in the interpretation. Objects them selves may well have intrinsic value such as precious metals or rare materials – the art object may have none of these but we build into them intrinsic values because we want them to have meaning. That meaning somehow makes us feel that we as humans have the intelligence and superiority to transcend the ordinary into the extraordinary. That is what an artist does or should be able to do.

H: You recently moved from London to Suffolk. Has this altered your ‘eye’ or made you reflect on things in a different way?

B: One of the reasons for moving here as a photographer is that I have more space and more light. My home in London housed my studio in a back room and it was restrictive in many ways. While we were preparing to move to Suffolk I had no studio at all, so I began to look at objects in themselves rather than construct from many objects. I wanted a daylight studio. I am not comfortable with using artifical light as it is not what I am about. I always shoot with natural light and this is quintessential to my work. My ‘eye’ is not altered but I now have the space to collect and store in ways I could not have done before and this in turn allows my ‘eye’ to wander much further and this in turn effects how you reflect on the things you see.

Bill Jackson is an accompished and respected photographer who has won many international awards for his work in recent years. He is the first photographer to receive three RPS International Print Awards. His work has been hung in many exhibitions world wide including The National Portrait Gallery, The Photographers Gallery, London, The Brno Museum, Prague and the Museum Of Contemporary Arts in Argentina. His work is also featured in many private and public collections.

Visit Bill Jackson’s website here