Coming up for Air
Stephen Gill
Nobody Books and Archive of Modern Conflict
English
Text by Stephen Gill
Hardcover
Edition of 4500
106 pages incl. 1 gatefold
250 x 335 mm
2010
ISBN 9780955657726
Coming up for Air surfaced out of an extended body of photographic work produced by Stephen Gill as he bobbed back and forth between Hackney and Japan during 2008 and 2009. Using his lens like a portable fish tank, Steven transports us to a strange and disorienting fictional aquatic world, in which contextual information is limited or completely absent, and our breath mists the view as our noses push up against the glass.
(Source: https://archiveofmodernconflict.com/coming-up-for-air/)
About the Artist
Gill’s passion for photography was sparked by his father’s quiet influence and fuelled by an early fascination with insects, birdlife, and the tiny pond creatures he’d gather to examine under a microscope. Music, too, has long been a steady companion. Together, these early obsessions nurtured a sense of wonder, and image-making became not only a way of exploring such curiosities but a means of responding to his surroundings and to the subjects that intrigue or move him. Over time, it has become an essential form of articulation and expression.
As the years have passed, Gill’s relationship with photography has continued to evolve. While he values photography’s strengths, he remains increasingly aware of its limits, how straight descriptive photographs are often unable to convey more elusive emotions, feelings, or ideas that lie beyond the glass wall of clarity, projection, and control. He works outside those limits, developing a quiet trust in chance and what can be withheld. In reducing information, he often finds that something vital — a presence, a spirit — can remain, allowing the subject to breathe without interference.
Gill continues to explore the idea that even the most abstract or ambiguous images can carry a truth, sometimes more illuminating than a clear visual description, however factual it may appear. In a time when images flood every corner of life and certainty feels harder to hold, he chooses to relinquish much of the authorship and control, seeking instead to honour his subjects by handing much of the authorship back to them. He is often drawn to finding ways to collaborate with his subjects or to assist them to fully speak for themselves, without the images being suffocated by the medium or the maker.
https://www.stephengill.co.uk/
(Source: https://www.stephengill.co.uk/about/)
About the Publisher
Stephen founded his publishing imprint Nobody in 2005 in order to exercise maximum control over the publication process of his books. His overriding intention is to make the book the finished expression of the photographs, rather than just a shell in which to house them. Experimentation with materials, collaboration with friends and a hands-on, tactile approach to maquette making would lead, in many cases, to his finished books having an individual, unique presence. This tactile approach includes materials and techniques such as lino cut printing, letter press printing, mono prints, spray paint, rubber stamps and on occasion, entire art books are manufactured and assembled by hand in Stephen’s studio. He considers the bookmaking process to be a key though separate stage in the production of his photographic works, and he aims to make books that are conceptually consistent with their content.
https://www.nobodybooks.com/
(Source: https://www.nobodybooks.com/)
The Archive of Modern Conflict is an organisation dedicated to the collection and preservation of vernacular photographs, objects, artefacts, curiosities, and ephemera. Founded in 1991, the archive began as a collection of photographs relating to war and conflict but has since expanded its remit to become the vast and thematically diverse repository it is today. They have produced and published over thirty books, often collaborating with photographers and artists such as Stephen Gill, Cristina de Middel, Thomas Mailaender, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, and Don McCullin.
archiveofmodernconflict.com
(Source: https://archiveofmodernconflict.com/about-us/)
