The research presented in Vis-à-vis at The Barn, Rosny Farm Arts (August 2020), aimed to find ways to visualise dissent, rupture and protest using abstract photography, sculpture and installation. It was informed by an investigation of graphic protest posters, and through visits to sites in Paris impacted by the 1968 student riots, 2015 terrorist attacks, and recent Gilets Jaunes protest actions during 2019. This was facilitated by a studio residency at the Rosamond McCulloch residency at Cite International des Arts.

Fieldwork was aimed to build an archive of documentary and street photography that explored abstraction to create imagery that could capture traces of the trauma embedded in objects, urban surfaces, buildings, and other sites of impact. Abstraction was used in preference to representational imagery to test strategies to provoke sensations that could be felt as well as comprehended through an intellectual reading of the works.

The abstract, mixed-media installation works seek to evoke debris, rubbish, remnants, and residue of sites of unrest through surfaces that are worn, abraded, have been attacked and bear traces of impact. Inexpensive photographic print processes, and rapid, amateurish construction with ordinary materials, salvaged cardboard, barrier tape and adhesive vinyl were used to reference visualise tension, disruption, and resistance. A key discovery of the research was that ‘vandalism’ could be used as an installation strategy to crush, bind, and tearing images and gallery walls, amplifying sensations of impact and trauma.