Orchards: Bramley apples
C-41 prints | 2010-12
With over 90% of produced apples being diced for the bakery trade or made into apple sauce production, very few of the public including locals are familiar with the Bramley, the main grower’s fruit of Northern Ireland.
As such, apples that have sustained earlier generations remain generally unknown to current populations – even though apple growing defines how residents describe these areas.
This series by Sylvia creates a contemporary portrait about the growers and their crops. It focuses on the labour of harvesting, processing and maintaining the land. Like Atget who created a series of tree and park images in an attempt to visually preserve the natural, Sylvia's work also records these locations and may hint at some of the changes coming. Fruit production under EU trade regulations has changed the output of farms in Northern Ireland – since these trade regulations determine what variety and amount of each fruit can be grown and traded.
C-41 prints | 2010-12
With over 90% of produced apples being diced for the bakery trade or made into apple sauce production, very few of the public including locals are familiar with the Bramley, the main grower’s fruit of Northern Ireland.
As such, apples that have sustained earlier generations remain generally unknown to current populations – even though apple growing defines how residents describe these areas.
This series by Sylvia creates a contemporary portrait about the growers and their crops. It focuses on the labour of harvesting, processing and maintaining the land. Like Atget who created a series of tree and park images in an attempt to visually preserve the natural, Sylvia's work also records these locations and may hint at some of the changes coming. Fruit production under EU trade regulations has changed the output of farms in Northern Ireland – since these trade regulations determine what variety and amount of each fruit can be grown and traded.
C-41 prints
A few notes about the project's development
By spending nearly two years working with orchard growers in Counties Armagh and Down in Northern Ireland, Sylvia tracked the seasons and attempted to create a set of visual indices of the labourers working in the fields. This Northern Irish conceived project gave way to a continuation of ideas that were transported back to Canada. While Orchards: Bramley apples was never been exhibited, this artist initiated project gave rise to the development of two larger commissioned suites comprising of 'This one's for the Farmer' and 'Farm Tableaux Finland.'
This one’s for the farmer was produced with a duality of context. Within Canadian traditions of staging are rooted in fine art, for this endeavour the artist worked within the real to reveal a broken process of monitoring and at times recalling a forensic type of documentation associated within a Northern Irish framework.
This one’s for the farmer referenced to a certain extent a photographic tradition within Northern Ireland – one of detached scrutiny and observation, building on the image’s relationship to journalism. It evolved to respond to the politics of the image, provoking questions of truth and personhood. So, too, does This one’s for the farmer contend with daily reality through imaging processes, and what it means to have a basis in spaces inaccessible and presented to for the viewer for further observation. Thus, This one’s for the farmer is an amalgamation of spaces and comparisons, in which staging borrows from a Canadian aesthetic and awareness of space and place from a socio-political Northern Irish perspective.
For a comparison about Sylvia's development of photographic art and observation from Northern Ireland to Canada, please refer to Dorothy Hunter's essay: " This one's for the Farmer' e-catalogue, Surrey Art Gallery, BC, Canada. 2013
This one’s for the farmer was produced with a duality of context. Within Canadian traditions of staging are rooted in fine art, for this endeavour the artist worked within the real to reveal a broken process of monitoring and at times recalling a forensic type of documentation associated within a Northern Irish framework.
This one’s for the farmer referenced to a certain extent a photographic tradition within Northern Ireland – one of detached scrutiny and observation, building on the image’s relationship to journalism. It evolved to respond to the politics of the image, provoking questions of truth and personhood. So, too, does This one’s for the farmer contend with daily reality through imaging processes, and what it means to have a basis in spaces inaccessible and presented to for the viewer for further observation. Thus, This one’s for the farmer is an amalgamation of spaces and comparisons, in which staging borrows from a Canadian aesthetic and awareness of space and place from a socio-political Northern Irish perspective.
For a comparison about Sylvia's development of photographic art and observation from Northern Ireland to Canada, please refer to Dorothy Hunter's essay: " This one's for the Farmer' e-catalogue, Surrey Art Gallery, BC, Canada. 2013