The Brighton Photo Fringe 2014 was a packed programme of over 80-exhibitions and events this year, taking place across a huge number of venues across the city. The closing event took place on 1st November, which included the announcement of those selected as winners of the Danny Wilson Memorial Award. There were three categories: the Professionals' Choice, the Trainee Curators' Choice and the People's Choice.
The winner of the Professionals' Choice award was Blue Rock by Alexandra Lethbridge, taken from her 2014 project, The Meteorite Hunter. The works in the project document a search for meteorites and their origins. The artist said of the work:
The work is based on the impulse to search for the ‘other’ within the everyday. Using the notion of the Meteorite as a metaphor for the fantastical hidden with in the everyday, the body of work is a document of a hunt to locate the ethereal and sublime in the mundane and banal.
The Trainee Curators' Choice went to Amelia Shepherd for her Image from her 288 Days project and was selected by BPF14 trainee curators Clare Bennett, Edwin Coomasaru and Ali Farmer. She said:
288 Days looks to confront and negotiate a public gaze and its impact on my own expectations and responses from being pregnant. The installation collates quotes, photo-documents and my own reflections throughout my nine months aiming to subvert stereotypes with a humorous honesty to expose my own pregnancy experience.
Finally the The People's Choice award was taken by Monica Alcazar Duarte who created an installation of images from her project Your Images Could Be Used By Drug Dealers on the 7th floor of Vantage Point. She said:
I documented life in two neighbouring towns on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The plan was to test the charged image of Mexico offered by the media and popular culture….The principles behind the project stem from my interest in exploring notions of meaning and interpretation in flux. My aim is to show images in a format where a fixed understanding is discouraged.
You can find out more about the awards and the winners at the Brighton Photo Fringe website here.
