OPS Weekly Newsletter 9 February 2025
It is with great sadness to write that Ivor has passed away. We have been privileged that Ivor has shared his enjoyment of photography with us over many years. It was such a delight that only a few months ago he gave us a new presentation about his photography. Ivor was always generous with his expertise, always friendly and always welcoming. He will be sorely missed. Rest in peace Ivor, rest in peace.
- Last week’s meeting Tues 4 February: I Also Fight Windmills – Ania Ready
Ania is a former OPS member who is a photographer, a publisher and a mother. She now has three children and has moved to rural Oxfordshire.
She had been researching the life and work of Polish writer Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska (1872-1925) after coming across an archive of her work. This led Ania to a seven-year research project which involved reading hundreds of manuscripts in English, French, and Polish, and travelling to rural Poland, Krakow, Lviv, Paris, New York, London, and Wotton-under-Edge to piece together the writer’s life and produce a Literary Photo Book on Sophie’s life and work.
There was very little photographic material of Sophie – just one photo portrait of her. Her life with her lover, the French sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, was made into biographical drama film, Savage Messiah, by British director Ken Russell in 1972.
The sparseness of photographic material did not deter Ania to embark on a mammoth project to bring Sophie’s life alive in the form of a photographic book.
Ania gave a description of Sophie’s life. She was born in Łączki Brzeskie in southern Poland, a very empty, monotonous, barren, flat land. Her mother kicked her out of the family home and Sophie went to Lviv in Ukraine. She travelled west to Paris, New York and London to find employment, and above all to fulfil her ambition of becoming a writer. She wrote numerous pieces—short stories, a novel, an autobiography, an 800-page diary, poems, and plays.
She suffered from the rigid rules of the old order, the lack of opportunities for women, poverty and disappointment that led to her mental instability. The heaviest blow came with the loss of her partner – Henri – in the First World War soon after she had sent him a rather mean-spirited letter.
Sophie moved to Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire in 1916. Her mental state deteriorated and in 1922 she was committed to the County Mental Hospital. She died in the hospital on 17 March 1925
Ania started reimaging Sophie’s life in photographs, recreating her life with very little in terms of visual evidence. She would go to places where Sophie had been to get a sense of what her life must have been like. She spent many years on this project and worked with a book designer from 2016. In 2020 she used KickStarter to fundraise money for her project. This was very stressful as she only had a month to raise the funds and she needed to relentlessly publicise the project on social media. After a great deal of effort the funds were raised.
Ania’s book – ‘I Also Fight Windmills’ – explores the themes of displacement, creativity, loneliness, a disempowering sense of guilt, lack of emotional support and social exclusion. The book investigates the psychological aspects of frustration and entrapment in a restrictive social role, and sensitively depicts mental disturbance.
Ania had numerous exhibitions of the images she had taken before she decided on the final images for the book. These “black & white images, frequently out-of-focus and blurred, masterfully depict inner struggles, feelings of oppression and desperation, and the slow descent into overwhelming madness. However, amidst the darkness, glimpses of hope and fervent energy subtly emerge—dancing figures, a couple holding hands, a close-up of a fern, a symbol of rebirth. As the book progresses, the images intensify in their frantic and abstract nature, representing the loss of control and the relentless progression of mental illness.”
She reenacted parts of Sophie’s life in places such of Cogges Manor Farm, shooting images of herself dressed as she envisaged Sophie would dress. The result is a fascinating mix of photographs and text which brings to life a forgotten woman who struggled with life.
A fascinating presentation that showed how photography can be used to tell a story in engaging ways and what a vision, creativity and tenacity and perseverance can achieve.
Ania got in contact this week with this message: “Thank you so much for having me last night at OPS. I was delighted to be able to share the ‘I Also Fight Windmills’ project with you all last night and receive so many interesting comments and questions.
Could you please share my thanks to all the members?
I’d also like to share the list of artists whose work inspired me when I was working on ‘I Also Fight Windmills’ photobook:
Igor Prosner, in particular his ‘Past Perfect Continuous’: https://igorposner.net/Past-Perfect-Continuous
Claude Cahun: https://www.moma.org/artists/8195-claude-cahun-lucy-schwob
Laura el Tantawy: https://www.lauraeltantawy.com
Alicja Brodowicz: https://independent-photo.com/stories/visual-exercises-a-series-of-diptychs/
Sophie Calle: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sophie-calle-2692
Marina Abramovic, in particular her ‘Seven Deaths of Maria Callas’: https://shop.royalacademy.org.uk/7-deaths-of-maria-callas
Anne Carson ‘Nox’: https://www.pagesofhackney.co.uk/webshop/product/nox-anne-carson
Amy Elkins ‘Anxious Pleasures’: https://www.amyelkins.com/anxious-pleasures
Additionally, I’ve just launched a fundraiser for Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska’s gravestone. I would be incredibly grateful for any support. Although Sophie had the means for a dignified burial, she was treated as a pauper patient and laid to rest in an unmarked grave in the mental asylum cemetery in Gloucester. I’d love to be able to place a gravestone acknowledging her as a writer and poet on 17th March, the centenary of her death. Here is the link to the fundraiser: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-honour-sophie-gaudierbrzeska.
I also mentioned a range of workshops on various alternative photographic processes, photography and psychology and photography and performance taking place in Oxford in spring this year. Here is the link: https://www.photooxford.org/workshops.
If anyone has any more questions or comments, or is interested in having a copy of the book, please feel free to contact me on ania.ready@gmail.com”
- Next meeting Tues 11 February 19.30: Print Competition no. 2
Our judge will be Chris Palmer
- Upcoming meetings in February 2025
Tuesday 18 February: What Does Photography Mean to You? By Grant Scott
Grant is the founder of United Nations of Photography, and began working as a professional photographer in 2000 after working for fifteen years as an art director of photography books and magazines such as Elle, Tatler and Foto8. He was the editor of Professional Photographer magazine and founded Hungry Eye magazine. Grant now works as a freelance photographer, writer and documentary filmmaker. He is a Senior Lecturer and Subject Coordinator of Photography at Oxford Brookes University and the author of several published books on photography.
Tuesday 25 February: Two OPS members presentations by Michele Peters, and Helen Stewart
- Programme Secretary vacancy
We have a full and varied programme for you this season thanks to the hard work and excellent choices by Les. Unfortunately, due to unexpected changes in Les’s work commitments he cannot continue in the role and we need someone to step forward to start the planning and booking of speakers for next season’s programme. Please do contact me or any other committee member if you are interested in taking on the role.
- Events photographic in and around Oxford
Photo Oxford Workshops
Join us for an exciting series of alternative photography workshops in March and April to explore the art of cyanotypes, anthotypes, phytograms, botanicograms, chemigrams, caffenol film development, pinhole cameras, photography as performance, and psychogeography.
https://www.photooxford.org/workshops
Camera Club: Why Are You Here?
A group of budding young photographers aged 12 – 17 have worked with artist, Elina Medley, to create and then curate their first exhibition, proudly showing at Magdalen Road Art Space @ Magdalen Road Studios
You can see the exhibition at Magdalen Road Art Space @ Magdalen Road Studios.
Join us for the Private View on 14 Feb at 5pm.
14 February – 20 February 2025
11am – 3pm
https://www.thenorthwall.com/whats-on/youthlab-camera-club-exhibition/
Bird Photographer of the Year Exhibition
An exhibition showcasing impactful and stunning images of birds taken from around the globe in 2024 is now open. Oxfordshire Museum, in Woodstock, is hosting the Bird Photographer of the Year exhibition until late February.
The Oxfordshire Museum
Fletcher’s House
Park Street
Woodstock
OX20 1SN
Saturday 11 Jan 2025, 10am-Sunday 23 Feb 2025, 5pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8n8yr28jdo
Bettina von Zwehl: The Flood
This exhibition will feature photographs by London-based artist, Bettina von Zwehl (b. 1971). Von Zwehl’s aim is to rekindle wonder and curiosity as critical tools for exploring new ideas and practices.
18 Oct 2024 – 11 May 2025
https://www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/ashmolean-now-bettina-von-zwehl
Don McCullin talks to Richard Ovenden
The Bodley Lecture and Award of the Bodley Medal: Life and Work
Thursday, 3 April 2025
6:00pm-7.00pm Sheldonian Theatre
£8 – £20
- General photographic interest
‘Still shocking today’: Larry Clark’s addiction images – in pictures
When the director and photographer returned home from Vietnam aged 20, he began photographing his intimate circle of friends – and their heroin use
Badger admiring art wins wildlife photographer of the year public vote
A badger captured glancing up at a graffiti version of itself has won the Natural History Museum’s people’s choice award for wildlife photographer of the year.
‘A place with its own rules’: London’s Square Mile – in pictures
From tumbling roller-skaters to winter-whipped workers, photographer Andy Hall has captured those who work beneath ‘shiny glass monuments to capitalism’
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2025/feb/05/london-square-mile-in-pictures
What if you never come down? The 90s clubbers who wouldn’t let the night end – a picture essay
In the late 1990s, Mischa Haller began taking pictures of British nightlife during the hours after the clubs had shut – from drunken revellers scoffing pizza to ravers blissed out on the beach
By Tim Jonze
Woman’s portrait of daughter wins prize
A woman who took an online photography course during lockdown has won a national competition with a portrait of her daughter.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5gp205pdlo
