Photobook Sunday proof read

Fragmentation
One important aspect of this is fragmentation. I
learned as I worked that my strategy, in
photography in particular, is to always show the
part, not the whole: details, oblique angles,
abstract shapes, interesting juxtapositions, rarely
centred. This is a way of trying to look at
something beyond the obvious – a strategy that I
think suits my task of making icons, which can only
ever be partial and hint at the indescribable.
The fragmented approach is described as tentative
and un-masculine but also as possibly a better
method of exploration in this article about
Charlotte Prodger’s work: ‘You never see her
whole body, or anyone else’s. You might see a
portion of her hand, or a bit of her furry hat. The
self is fragmented …. , offering the opposite of the
certainty of a masculinist point of view. It reminds
me of the Scottish poet and nature writer Nan
Shepherd – a writer whom Prodger admires –
saying that ‘the better way to discover a mountain
might be not to walk up it, but to walk around it,
finding its secret places and crevices rather than
its peaks.’[13]
Another way of disrupting over-familiar
assumptions so they are revealed, and possibly
questioned, is suggested by James Hunting’s textile
pieces, which have small disturbances in the
pattern. He says, “Woven cloth follows a rule of
warp and weft. Disrupt these and the eye cannot
smooth over difference. These exclusions hold the
glance. They disturb the non-looking and nonseeing
that pervades, enforcing an
engagement.[14]”
So, something that doesn’t fit – an out-of-place
object, a jarring juxtaposition, some missing
information – can provoke that shift to another
perspective or dimension, maybe by requiring the
imagination to fill the gap, create a narrative. Thus,
I am making ‘icons’ that are in some ways
familiarly religious, but also don’t fit. Something
that provokes not just a question but a feeling of
strangeness or discomfort, while also being
compelling. And I’m making more than one, as
there is not one answer but a number of
possibilities.
This and next two pages, all Pippa King 2019
Kitchen Crucifix
15 th Century Arch and Duster
Oasis