200th Post, Less Than 20 Hours!

So, it's the 200th post and with less than 20 hours before my trip to Beijing, what better to leave you with than some very new works, literally just tested/ produced on Wednesday for my collaborative project with Thomas Sauvin. What you are seeing, the very first sneaky peek to the first silk screen tests for my intervention into the Silvermine, working with hand drawn screens, produced through my paintings you glimpse the beauty of this medium. These will debut at the Format Photo Festival in Derby where Thomas and I will exhibit our collaborative projects primary, experimental material.

With this in mind, I await an 10-11 hour flight to Beijing and land on Monday morning to bright blue skies, (from what I hear) and an enormous archive of imagery I could of only dreamed of seeing, experiencing and importantly working with. I will be sure to update where-ever as possible and look forward to all that China has to offer!

再見，看到您的到來

Only 2 Weeks to go...

So it is nearly here, this time in 2 weeks I will be BA to Beijing! I collected my Visa this week and all is ready for my residency to start in just a few more days, 15 to be precise! I cannot explain how exciting this trip is going to be, and I think it is the start of many this year. The project which I will be working on is a collaborative one, working with the wonderful Thomas Sauvin, with his archive. 

Recently the Guardian spoke to Thomas about the archive, from which I will be working from/ with and here is a little except into the wonders that await me...

"Recently, Thomas Sauvin has been a bit obsessed by women with fridges.

Tourists in front of the Mona Lisa are another fascination: "You have a glass box in front of the painting, dozens of people fighting to see, the flash - it's the perfect horrible image," he said with delight.

Over almost four years, the Beijing-based French artist has amassed more than 500,000 negatives from Chinese amateur photographers which had, until his intervention, been destined for destruction.

"This time is from 1985, when everyday Chinese accessed film photography, to 2006, when digital started taking over," he said. "It's really the birth of post-socialist China...."

You can read more from the article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/04/negative-collection-camera-film-china

I can't quite explain how incredible our collaborative insight will prove. But what I do know is that we have been testing some ideas already and they are working very well and I will update you while in Beijing and of course the first showing of the progress will be at the FORMAT Photo Festival opening on the 7th March 2013.

More info here: http://www.formatfestival.com/artists/beijing-silvermine-2009-2013

Until then, my preparations await me!

Available from Photo-Eye & PhotoBookStore

The Photograph as Contemporary Art by Melinda Gibson from PhotoBookStore.co.uk on Vimeo.

I am very pleased to announce that you can purchase my first book, from both photo-eye in Santa Fe and from the UK at the PhotoBookStore. Both links are below and see above a video of the book.

photo-eye: http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=ZF315&i=&i2=

PhotoBookStore: http://www.photobookstore.co.uk/photobook-the-photograph-as-contemporary-art.html