By Joseph Gouldburn
Exploring Time is Joe’s ongoing project that began during his Master’s studies at the University of Staffordshire.
His artistic practice revolves around the concept of time, investigating local histories across several locations, reinserting historical narratives within their corresponding contemporary environments using an antique lens and parafictional self-portraiture.
Joe’s self-portraiture creates a tension between perceptions of truthfulness and historical fact, referencing the slews of conflicting information regarding local histories while also creating a conflation between the modern world and gone eras.
Joe uses a camera manufactured in 1898, that he’s adapted to use 5×4 large format sheet film. To emphasise the disconnect between the present and the past, Joe takes the developed film and digitises it, bringing the past of the photographic process into the present.
This piece, ‘A Farmer’s Bee Token’, represents a local tale that speaks of a farmer’s business with a witch, buying a talisman called a ‘bee’, supposedly allowing for increased efficiency when tied to farm tools.
Find Joe here: Instagram @jgouldburnphotography
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