Stranger than known: South Home Town exhibition
What is it about our city that in its name is always a town? And what does it do to the city’s self-image, when so many people arrive, and then almost immediately leave? The Stranger than Known: South Home Town exhibition explores the real and imagined identity of Southampton, celebrating its 50 years status as a city.
Artist Steve Hawley and Southampton Solent lecturer, Fellow and documentary maker Tony Steyger have collaborated to create a site specific installation for the University’s Showcase Gallery.
As well as slow motion video and drones, the exhibition features archived footage of the city, including footage from Calling Blighty.
Made during World War II by the Army Film Unit, the Calling Blighty films enabled soldiers serving abroad to record visual messages for family back home.
According to a report about a screening at the Classic Cinema in Southampton in The Echo on 1 May 1944, when one soldier appeared on screen saying to the camera, "Hello Bobby, can you see me?" his seven year old son stood up in the audience replying "Yes Daddy, I see you." Recently the local media got involved when the exhibition curators asked for help in locating seven year old Bobby Kelly. He was found and actually attended the preview along with his younger brother.
Speaking about the exhibition, co-creator Tony Steyger says: “This evocative installation offers a vision of the city and its edges, glimpsing ghosts of the past to transform the everyday.”
Alongside the gallery exhibition is a community art space showcasing the work local schools and colleges – including Kanes Hill Primary School and St Anne’s Catholic School – who have contributed to the project during 2014, focusing on the theme of identity.
The exhibition is open to the public from 12 December 2014 – 7 February 2015 at the University’s Showcase gallery, Above Bar Street Southampton. Gallery opening times are 11am-6pm Monday to Friday and 11am - 5pm Saturdays. Please note the gallery will be closed during the Christmas period from 22 December 2014 – 4 January 2015.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT THE MEDIA OFFICE ON 023 8031 9079 or press.office@solent.ac.uk
Notes for editors:
Tony Steyger is a documentary producer and director and has worked in broadcast television for the BBC and Channel 4 and as an independent producer and co-founder of Maverick Television. At key moments in his career Tony has collaborated with video artist Steve Hawley, on projects such as The Science Mix (1983, Stedelijk, MoMA NY)) and Language Lessons (1995, Channel 4). At the heart of all his work is a desire to harness new technology to extend the documentary form and to explore the nature of authentic representation.
In the 1990’s Tony produced for the BBC’s Emmy-award winning series Video Diaries and was the inspiration behind the Mass Observation series Video Nation, the camcorder anthropology of everyday life. He extended the ‘first person’ documentary genre with Michelle’s Story, the first video diary to be shown on BBC1, wining an RTS award.
Once the internet arrived with its promise of democracy Tony developed interactive programming for the new BBC digital channels and supervised the live stream website with Victoria Real for the debut UK series of Big Brother in 2000. More recently he directed The Last Taboo in Africa with students from Southampton Solent and Nairobi winning a Learning on Screen award (BUFVC) in 2014.
Tony’s latest collaboration with Steve Hawley, Stranger than Known: South Home Town employs the latest image capture technology including ultra-high definition, drone and super slo-motion, to tell the story of the city of Southampton and its people, exploring its real and imagined identity.
Steve Hawley is an artist who has been working with film and video since 1981, and his work has been shown at video festivals and broadcast worldwide since then. He has been collaborating with Tony Steyger off and on since their video The Science Mix was shown at the Stedelijk and MoMA NY in 1983. His original preoccupation was with language and image, and in 1995 his experimental documentary made with Tony Steyger on artificial languages was broadcast on Channel 4.
More recently his work has looked at new forms of narrative, in such works as Love Under Mercury, his first film for the cinema, which won a prize at the Ann Arbor film festival, and Amen ICA Cinema 2002, a palindromic video which won the prize for most original video at the Vancouver Videopoem festival.
He has explored issues around the impact of new technologies on narrative. Yarn 2011, uses the DVD medium to create a never ending story, and Actor 2013 makes film without a camera by putting the performer in a motion capture suit.
Manchester Time Machine 2012, made with the North West Film Archive is the first ever iPhone app to combine archive film footage and GPS and is part of a project looking at the nature of the city, including Not to Scale 2009 (filmed in a series of model towns). The video installation with Tony Steyger, Stranger than Known; South Home Town filmed in Southampton continues this body of work.
About Southampton Solent University
Southampton Solent University offers more than 23,000 students over 200 qualifications ranging from HND to PhD, in subjects such as maritime education and training, fashion and design, media and television, music, health, sport and leisure, business, IT and technology. The University was awarded the 2013 Quality Assurance kitemark for quality and standards of teaching and learning. Solent was voted one of the most creative universities in the UK in a Which? University 2014 poll of students. Solent Business School has been awarded the Small Business Charter Award, which is supported by the Association of Business Schools and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and ‘gold approval’ by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).
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