About

HUMAN ENDEAVOUR

Human Endeavour is a photographic collective originally conceived in late 2007 by Murray Ballard, Simon Carruthers, Richard Chivers and Alex Currie. The aim of Human Endeavour was to bring together like-minded photographers with a view to curating and enabling the set up and exhibition of new works around a central theme. The objective was to exhibit photographic work that was themed in conjunction with ideas of human activity and intervention that resonate with important topical issues of the day, affecting the wider society as a whole.

For the purposes of the first show, as part of the Brighton Photo Fringe in 2008, the four participants attempted to convey ideas of human intervention and activity, which included the societal impacts of re-cycling, geological and human intervention through quarrying, thoughts of death and immortality observed through cryogenics and the impacts of globalisation and homogenisation, as reflected in one of the worlds biggest ports and beyond. To do this a successful application was made to the Arts Council of England, with the full backing of the Brighton Photo Fringe. The show ran for six weeks for the duration of the Photo Fringe and Brighton Photo Biennial. As well as achieving all the criteria set out by the Arts Council, the show was a huge public and critical success, with upwards of 1000 visitors, and many online and printed reviews in a variety of publications such as Source and Foto8 magazines.

Murray Ballard is currently taking a sabbatical from Human Endeavour, to pursue solo projects, leaving Simon Carruthers, Richard Chivers and Alex Currie as the core members. The current aims of Human Endeavour continue to flourish, bringing in guest photographers Oliver Perrott and Ben Westoby, as part of the upcoming exhibition ‘End’, at the Crane Kalman Gallery in May 2010. Currently Carruthers, Chivers and Currie are putting together an Arts Council application with a view to producing new work around the central theme of ‘regeneration’, for exhibition at the Brighton Photo Fringe 2010.

'END' Crane Kalman Gallery, Brighton. May 3rd - 16th 2010.

This exhibition brings together current work by five contemporary landscape photographers who concern themselves with the relationship between modern society and the space it occupies.

Alex Currie’s documentation is concerned with the continuing disappearance of a post-industrial and urban landscape, and the experiential relationship that is lost through the destruction of these spaces, reflecting upon the collective loss this has upon the human condition. Ben Westoby is concerned with the expansion and movement of the modern urban landscape, the impact it has on surrounding areas, and the altered sense of place that occurs through this movement. Similarly, Richard Chivers’ survey of the site of an ex-military airbase traces the gradual, shifting topography of the area and the tenacious relationship between the organic and synthetic landscapes, echoing a time of direct action and protest that has shifted to other prevalent political ideals in the 21st century. Simon Carruthers’ series of images along London’s extensive canal system focuses on areas of recent redevelopment that reflects traces of their decline as a mode of transport for the industrial capital. This creates a tension that offers new perspectives on infrastructure in a state of transition. Oliver Perrot’s images of glacial landscapes act as a metaphor for the impact of modern society on the natural environment. These masses of ice slowly melt away to reveal new, unfamiliar textures and shapes; analogous to the changing ways we experience our surroundings, and ourselves.

The individual works shown here aim to offer new understandings of our position within a continually changing landscape. As a collective, these images bring together new perspective of the dialogue that occurs through our evolving relationship within the landscape we inhabit, and how this resonates upon the collective human psyche in wider society.

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