The Desire Project. Les Monaghan

What do you want?

Its a simple question, but beyond immediate needs, like a break or a coffee, what do we desire most?

This portraiture project allows members of the public some reflective time to ponder a big question. Following on from recent projects it posits that a photographic portrait is only a starting point. Again it will rely on 'occasionality' – the idea that we engage with the person represented and not the representation.

The Desire Project is funded by Arts Council England for exhibition in the Frenchgate Centre, Doncaster from March 2016. “I'm interested in what it means to live today. I'm using Doncaster to explore this, and aiming for the widest audience. Large portraits of the public are combined with their desires”.  The Desire Project also features on BBC Photo Editor Phil Coombes' In Pictures.

The exhibition will then stay up till further notice, potentially until the end of the year. Its on both floors of the public thoroughfare of the Frenchgate Centre from the bus and rail station entrances to the food court, plus a pleasantly lit atrium space. Its all free and generally open all the time. In a space dedicated to consumption the exhibit will ask what we value as a society.

Analysis of the public's reaction to The Desire Project will form the basis of Les Monaghan's presentation at Photography Matters, an OCA symposium taking place on Saturday 21 May at CAST in Doncaster, tickets are available via CAST and some thoughts on why he wanted to organise the event can be found here.

To find out about Photography Matters one-day OCA conference visit our blog. 

For further information visit the wbsite of the Open College of the Arts here.

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