Photography - Joëlle Robinson

When fine art photographer Joëlle Robinson took a break from lecturing in London to do a postgraduate course, she decided to go to Cyprus for a year “mainly because I’d have no distractions.” While she was there, one of her photographic projects evolved and now forms part of her ‘Collection’ show that opens at the Chalk Gallery this week, as part of the Brighton Photo Biennial photography festival and the Brighton Photo Fringe.

In Cyprus, Robinson took a small section of a map which, as she told Viva Lewes, “was about one mile in radius and was made up of the places I visited most - my studio, house and the beach.” Within this space she photographed inanimate organic objects which were all once living or were part of a living creature e.g. a lizard, snake skin and a feather. Each piece is scanned in a scientific way as if it was a specimen for an experiment, and they are all typical of the area in which she stayed: “I had lizards on my roof all the time, I saw lots of snakes”. The rest of the ‘Collection’ show is made up of a “collection of interior spaces” where the focus is on the space and not the place e.g. the space within an abandoned brewery - and Robinson’s telephonic images. These are all random, have been taken with a mobile phone and portray every day life. They are reproduced, unaltered, in 8x10 prints. KA