During my recent research into the connections of Arts and Science I came across an Interview with Richard Mosses. Mosses worked on a longtime series 'The Enclave' in the Congo region creating fine art photographs and installation artworks to visualise the complexity and brutality in the war-torn country.
Fine Art photography according to Mosses gives the artists a greater opportunity to reveal deeper conflicts and therefore send a stronger message. Comparing this to classic documentary photography, where the photographer is always limited by what part of the conflict is actually visible to him. While documentary photography is the foundation of photographic truthfulness, fine art seems to have a greater power to educate.
In 'Representing nature: art and climate change' Malcolm Miles (2010: 17(1) pp. 19-35) makes a very similar observation when separating representation and intervention artworks. Looking back at Mosses example documentary photography could therefore be classified as representation while fine art can cause Interventions.
In 'The Enclave' Mosses uses beauty to visualise tragedy and horror. To capture the story he wanted to tell he picked a military style 16mm Infrared film nowadays no longer available. 'This film has the potential to make the invisible visible.' and than he goes on to explain the idea behind his project 'I was really trying to […] take two completely unrelated things, one, the history of photography, and the other, the history of Africa, and to examine them in light of each other' (Mosses, 2013). Richard Mosses work using military infrared surveillance film is also a great example of the deeper connections of technique and processes when working on fine art projects. While documentary photography (much like science) is all about transporting a clear message, fine art can use various mediums to build a stronger connection to the subject matter and by doing so leave more room for audiences to investigate.
In using infrared film Mosses creates bright pink coloured fine art imagery to visualised a series of conflict and war, due to his theory that the viewer will look at images of beauty for a far longer time then at those showing open violence or tragedy.
According to Mosses idea as he describes in his Interview with RTE from 2014, the audience has more time to get invested in an image of beauty and feel a sense of 'aesthetic pleasure'. During the time spend admiring the Image, they realise the deeper connections and story behind it.
Seduced by the artist to see beauty in tragedy, a feeling to be ethically compromised takes over, which however results in an audience that now is more self aware, begins a thinking process to find a solution and wants to make sense of the visible as well as invisible new knowledge.
In the past, influential essayists like Susan Sontag 'In Photography' and now Malcom Miles in 'Representing nature: art and climate change' critiqued photography for being too visual. By showing the brutality of war in tabloids and now online, society would stop being effected by it as it simply becomes part of the everyday life. Now, Mosses approach to hid tragedy in beauty mind be a way out and fundamental to keep photographic art an effective tool of education.
Investigating this idea further in my research practice I'll look into the success of fine art photography specifically and compare other art forms to it, to find out of there is indeed a medium most suitable to educate audiences.
Bibliography:
Artsy Editors (2013) Interview: Richard Mosse on his Moving Images of Congolese Rebels. artsy.net 30 May 2013 Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/editorial-interview-richard-mosse-on-his-moving-images [Accessed on 30 March 2019]
BJP (2014) Richard Mosse wins Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2014. British Journal of Photography. 12 May 2014. Available at: https://www.bjp-online.com/2014/05/richard-mosse-wins-deutsche-borse-photography-prize-2014/ [Accessed on 30 March 2019]
Miles, M. (2010) Representing nature: art and climate change. Cultural Geographies, 17(1): 19-35.
Mosses, R. (2013) The Enclave. [Online Image] Artists Offical Website Available at:http://www.richardmosse.com/projects/the-enclave [Accessed on 27 March 2019]
Roosen, L. Klöckner, Ch. & Swim, J. (2018) Visual art as a way to communicate climate change: a
psychological perspective on climate change–related art. World Art, 8(1): 85-110
RTÉ Irland's National Public Service Media (2014) Richard Mosse extended interview. The Works RTÉ ONE John Kelly Interview,14th February 2014 Available at: https://youtu.be/QbSDv-5v_x4 [Accessed on 27 March 2019]
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