Issue 30 - Contents

Buck Ellison’s photographs depict individuals and spaces inscribed with white familial normativity. Daniel C. Blight considers how they function as images, and asks: what is the relation between narcissism, wealth and cultural traits associated with the social construction of whiteness?

Alice Zoo evaluates Janire Nájera’s book Atomic Ed – the remarkable story of Ed Grothus, from his time at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, where he helped to develop and refine the atomic bomb, to becoming a lifelong agitator against its uses, consequences, and the brutal decisions made by those in power.

Currently on display at Tate Britain, Joanna Piotrowska’s All Our False Devices – a selection of framed black-and-white photographs and three 16mm film loops – relates to self-protection and psychophysical relationships. Eugénie Shinkle examines the various gestures that testify to the nuanced character of human frailty.

Through text and image, Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa invites us to observe the physical and mental dismantling of racial and gendered violence as expressed and experienced in United States today. Taous R. Dahmani reflects on the work’s narrative constructions and fragmentary power.

Five years in the making, Alys Tomlinson’s Ex-Voto examines the practice of pilgrimage via a multi-locational study concurrently looking at various Christian pilgrimage sites, comprising evocative portraits and views discordant with the hegemonic methods of contemporary social documentary. Accompanied by an essay from Caroline Molloy.

John MacLean’s playful photographs display an array of observations, surfaces, spaces and gestures, teasing from the image a space beyond its straight edges and conventional geometries. Duncan Wooldridge reflects on this search to approximate or attempt to reveal the ‘the real’.

Book Review

Stephen Gill

The Pillar

Nobody Books

Interview

Ekow Eshun – Curator

Africa State of Mind

Impressions Gallery, Bradford