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We Are One

0134, originally uploaded by Cia de Foto.

There was an interesting talk/discussion at The Photographers Gallery last night on the topic of collectives. Documentography, of which I am a member, participated along with ANRA, Unseen, Latitude Photographers and Cia de Foto. There was a lot of interest in the way that Cia de Foto, who are based in Brazil, organize themselves. Whereas it might be fair to say that the other four collectives have come together to promote and enrich the work of the individual members, Cia de Foto is a single unit with no individual authorship taken by the three photographers. For a lot of us the idea of relinquishing or sharing authorship of our work is a hard thing to come to terms with, it's something that we are programmed to struggle against but for Cia de Foto it has produced some beautiful results and listening to Pio Figueiroa describe their "hedonistic" marriage of work and lifestyle evoked a photographic utopia where we all could photograph each other and everything without the limitations of ego. I'm not ready to give up my byline though and it might be partly because of ego but I think that I need the sense of accountability that claiming authorship gives me.

Taryn Simon

Taryn Simon - Nuclear Waste

The Deutsche Borse Photography prize shortlisted artists are being exhibited at The Photographers Gallery in London until April 12th. I went to see it yesterday in-between picking up a repaired Mac and browsing cameras I can't afford. For me the most engaging work was "An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar" by Taryn Simon. Her images are beautifully conceived, individually and as a set, and beautifully realised. It's a work with a clear, but not simplistic or one-dimensional vision, it tells us stuff but it has ambiguities to illuminate rather than to obscure. I hope it wins (even though I was born the same year as Taryn and usually that prevents me from enjoying another photographers success).