Time/Travel 8 Hours

The research grows out of funded fieldwork. Between August 2001 - November 2001, I undertook a research trip to the USA, funded by the Boise Scholarship scheme. During the trip I made a series of long exposure photographs exploring the relationship between travel and duration. I was exploring the possibilities for an alternative way in which the experience of travelling through the USA could be documented photographically. The photographs show entire nights’ sleep in budget motels in California, Arizona, Utah, Oregon, Nevada and Washington State. Using 8–hour exposures the night–long shots record the movement of the sleeping figures as vapour trails over the bed. This movement is set against every detail, in sharp focus, of the sparsely decorated rooms. Recurring features are in this way highlighted; framed landscapes; lamps and tables, providing perhaps a semblance of domestic comfort. The work has been shown in a number of exhibitions. These included: London Calling, Con-temporary Gallery, Berlin, http://www.con-temporary.de in which the five selected (London Based) artists looked at the use of photography and lens-based media, subverting its intended function; Passing Through, Ffotogallery, Cardiff, http://www.ffotogallery.org/frame.html?http%3A//www.ffotogallery.org/ff-exhibitions/exhib-index1.htm in which the three artists in the exhibition (Natalie Latham, Tim MacMillan and Martin Newth) focus on people traversing through real and imaginary spaces; and Sequences http://www.sequences.org.uk/; a national touring exhibition which brought together artists using sequences of images relating their research to the work of nineteenth century ‘Chronophotographers’ including Etienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904). The series of photographs has also been published in Source magazine, Issue 40. ISSN 1369-2224. http://www.source.ie/issues/issues2140/issue40/is40cont.html