When it was first published in 1996, Richard Billingham’s Ray’s a Laugh captured the imagination of the art world and beyond, for its raw and unflinching portrayal of the photographer’s working-class upbringing. The images – of Billingham’s mother Liz, father Ray, younger brother Jason and their various pets – were all taken inside the family’s Black Country high-rise flat, where side tables were strewn with cigarettes, and brewing tensions immortalised on film. The images were intended as studies for paintings, but a tutor on Billingham’s Sunderland University course discovered them, eventually convincing the photographer to display them on their own. Inside that flat, Billingham’s lens never shied away from the bleaker side of their lives, and in doing so made Ray’s a Laugh one of the most enduring portrayals of 90s Britain.
Now, almost 27 years after the book’s initial publication, Ray’s a Laugh is getting a 2024 reissue, one that includes various unseen images and a new approach to the series’ original sequencing. Described as a “director’s cut” of the 1996 original, the new edition will also be accompanied by Ray’s a Laugh: A Reader, edited by Liz Jobey. The companion volume will delve into the history of the work, Billingham’s ‘discovery’ at Sunderland University and his career to the present day.
After the publication of Ray’s a Laugh, Billingham’s work was displayed in the 1997 exhibition Sensation, a now-iconic Charles Saatchi collection that also included Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde shark and Tracey Emin’s tent. In 2000, the photographer was given a major solo exhibition at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham which led to a Turner Prize nomination the following year. In 2016, the photographer adapted Ray’s a Laugh into the video short Ray, which was followed by the BAFTA-nominated 2018 feature film Ray & Liz, of which Billingham wrote and directed.
Ray’s a Laugh Special Edition by Richard Billingham and Ray’s a Laugh: A Reader ed. Liz Jobey will be published by MACK Books in February 2024 and are available to pre-order now.
Exhibit development and design plays a pivotal role in museums worldwide. Throughout the development process, consideration is given to community interests and needs. It is also essential that exhibitions not only reflect the communities in which they are located, but also actively highlight and raise awareness for those who have been historically and traditionally marginalized, particularly within the museum space. This approach ensures that museums serve as inclusive and representative spaces that contribute to a more diverse and equitable cultural narrative.
On January 27, 2024, IVDM will open its first Indigenous Art Exhibition, Native Voices | Native Truths: A Contemporary Experience, celebrating local indigenous artists and their unique perspectives!
Crafting Change – An Inclusive Approach
Centering indigenous voices is at the heart of this exhibition. In order to ensure equitable representation during the selection process, IVDM worked with a diverse selection committee, composed of representatives from IVDM and respected indigenous artists and scholars throughout Southern California. This approach brought together different perspectives and expertise, as well as prioritized the artists and their personal experiences.
The committee included enrolled member of the Kumeyaay tribal nation, Director of the Board and Professor of Native Kumeyaay language, history, arts and culture at Kumeyaay Community College, Dr. Stan Rodríguez, Comanche artist/painter and tenure track Professor of the American Indian Studies department at California State University San Marcos, Dr. Eric Tippeconnic, enrolled member and artist of the Gabrielino/Tongva Nation, Acjachemen, and Mexican, and project coordinator of the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center, Monica Zavala, and San Diego native and member of San Pasqual Kumeyaay band, artist Johnny Bear Contreras.
Calling all Creatives
To foster engagement with the local community, the IVDM initiated an open call in September, inviting indigenous artists across Southern California and Northern Baja California to participate. This proactive approach not only encourages collaboration but also ensures the representation and celebration of indigenous art and culture within IVDM. Utilized at numerous organizations, “open calls” are public announcements or invitations, inviting artists to submit their work for consideration. The purpose of an open call is to engage with the artistic community, as well as select artworks for exhibitions or other opportunities.
With the selection committee, IVDM chose 17 local indigenous artists to exhibit their work for the exhibitions. The approximately 40+ works IVDM will be showcasing throughout the exhibition include a variety of mediums such as painting, ceramics, photography, creative writing and poetry, and more!
Installing a Space
Exhibit installation is a critical phase in the development of any exhibition, ensuring that the content is presented effectively, accurately represents the works submitted, and actively engages visitors to the Museum. This is a massive undertaking, requiring open communication and dialogue between the artists and curator. This not only lays the groundwork for a smooth installation process, but also makes certain that the stories and perspectives the artists wish to share are displayed in line with their vision.
The installation process includes arranging exhibit elements in a way that facilitates a logical flow, establishing a coherent narrative, and creating aesthetic views for the audience. Curators pay attention to the placement of each item, while also ensuring their safety and preservation, as well as properly lighting and installing the works. By carefully addressing these aspects during exhibit installation, museums enhance the overall quality of the exhibition and create a positive and memorable experience for the artists and visitors alike!
Visions Unveiled
To learn more about exhibit installation and support local indigenous art, join IVDM Staff and artists for their exhibit opening on January 27th, 2024 from 6:00-9:00 p.m. Native Voices | Native Truths: A Contemporary Experience features 17 local indigenous artists from 12 different tribes, celebrating and highlighting their voices and perspectives!
To complement the exhibition, up and coming local restaurant Ursa will be hosting a Pop-Up dinner at IVDM on Friday, January 26, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. Tickets include a five-course tasting menu and selected drinks!
The Imperial Valley Desert Museum is located in Ocotillo, California. It is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate photography students showed off their work at the “Take My Word For It” photography exhibition, which concluded Sunday at the Arts Lofts Gallery.
The exhibition gave gallery-goers an up-close look at the artists’ and their personal stories.
Second year grad student Mariah Moneda displayed three pieces, all of which centered around her Filipino culture and connection with food. Her selected pieces, “Banana Leaves,” “Black Crappie” and “Turon and Banana Leaf,” gave her audience a glimpse into Filipino food traditions important to her.
Mariah Moneda’s work on display at the graduate photography exhibition “Take My Word For It.”
“Most of my work revolves around this idea of labor and community, and the way that we showed love in my family actually had a lot to do with the gestures of feeding each other,” Moneda told The Daily Cardinal. “Even when we were mad at each other or we were fighting, there was this idea that you still deserve a seat at the table. You still deserve sustenance. You deserve to live.”
Through her work, Moneda visually explored her personal connection to food, the sustenance it provides and the decay that stems from wasted scraps.
In “Turon and Banana Leaf,” Moneda photographed a staged still life of turon, a Filipino dessert, and a decaying banana leaf to spark conversation on where your meals come from and where they’re discarded.
“You can’t have a meal without all the discard that comes with it, and I think that’s really indicative of how you can’t have all the good things without having all the bad things,” Moneda said. “I really love this visual motif of life and death and the juxtaposition between the two.”
Before starting graduate school at UW-Madison, much of Moneda’s work centered around domestic life and her family. When she moved away from her family in Arizona to Wisconsin, she struggled to figure out how to continue incorporating her culture and family traditions into photography.
Moneda recalled the first time she stumbled across something that reminded her of home and how that experience inspired some of her more recent photography work.
Enjoy what you’re reading? Get content from The Daily Cardinal delivered to your inbox
“I had this really surreal moment where I was in a Thai restaurant, and I had this very simple rice soup that was so reminiscent of one that I’ve had from my childhood,” she said. “I remember smelling it and then just bursting into tears in the middle of this Thai restaurant because I’m so far away from home and everything I know.”
Moneda said that moment sparked a realization: food is a connection to her roots as well as a way to “move forward and build a new community.”
“Food is this invitation to bring people to a place they usually wouldn’t go,” Moneda said. “I talk a lot about how food is a tool I use to invite others into my space.”
While Moneda said cooking helped her build a community in Wisconsin, she still grieves being away from her community back home.
“For me, I think it’s also this gesture of grief and a send off because so much of what I’m able to share with my new community comes from my old community that I don’t have anymore, which is why I’m attempting to build a new one in the first place,” Moneda said.
While Moneda’s work in the exhibition focused on her Filipino culture and relationship with food, second year graduate student Mark Almanza explored personal struggles that come with being a first-generation Mexican-American.
“I’ve never felt Mexican enough or American enough, and so I’m living in this kind of middle space of identity,” Almaza told the Cardinal.
In one of Almanza’s self portraits titled “El Perron y El Perrito,” Almaza captured himself sitting center-frame in a wooden chair holding a little stuffed dog. In the portrait, he donned a cowboy hat and a western belt buckle.
Another self-portrait titled “El Águila Sobre un Nopal,” meaning “The Eagle on a Cactus,” features Almaza sitting shirtless in front of a tapestry of an eagle. The eagle tapestry serves as a symbolic representation of his Mexican heritage, calling on the nation’s flag which encapsulates an image of an eagle.
Almaza said his photography allows him to take on issues with machismo, which he said is a strong sense of masculine pride embedded in Latino culture, and explore what it means to exist in a space between two cultures.
“Self-portraiture really allows me to choose a lane and be the person that I might want to be,” Almaza said.
Beyond Moneda and Almaza’s work, the exhibition as a whole served as a collection of deeply personal experiences and stories told visually through photography, living up to the exhibition’s name, “Take My Word For It.”
The Daily Cardinal has been covering the University and Madison community since 1892. Please consider giving today.
Anna Kleiber is an arts editor for The Daily Cardinal. She also reports on state politics and campus news. Follow her on Twitter at @annakleiber03.
Speaking to WILD FOR LIFE, Paul Nicklen said he found photography through frustration. The Canadian photographer and marine biologist had grown tired of “turning his research into data for the spreadsheets” while watching the gap grow between the science he loved and the public’s knowledge of environmental issues. He shared, “It essentially cost me my job because I refused to put my camera down and it started to drive my colleagues nuts.”
Receiving more than 30 of the highest awards given to photographers in his field, including the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year and the prestigious World Press Photo for photojournalism, Nicklen uses his vivid images of our planet’s frontiers by expressing its raw beauty and fragility – with a focus on the oceans – to signal the threats confronting them. His work is celebrated for illuminating the link between biodiversity loss and climate change, and depicting how our precious ecosystems are being pushed to the brink of destruction.
Growing up in landlocked Cuernavaca in Mexico, Cristina Mittermeier was also not a photographer by profession.Mittermeier was enthralled by the ocean when her dad first took her to the coast. Going on to study marine science, Mittermeier soon realised the critical challenges faced by the planet’s oceans.
As her interest and talents grew, Mittermeier began to discover how to use photography to communicate the issues of conservation that were so close to her heart. It was then she started “exploring the power of imagery”, deciding that visual storytelling would be a more impactful way to draw attention to the urgent need to protect the oceans, quickly becoming a pioneer in conservation photography with a multi-award-winning career. On an international level, she is keenly sought as a public speaker at key conferences such as the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon in 2022 and at forums such as the Convention on Biological Diversity.
Among her many accomplishments, she founded the International League of Conservation Photographers in 2005, providing a platform for photographers working on environmental issues and conservation efforts. Mittermeier met Nicklen in 2010, bonding over their mutual love of photography, the ocean and conservation. Together with photographer and filmmaker Andy Mann, Mittermeier and Nicklen founded SeaLegacy in 2014, a non-profit organization that uses photography and other visual media to raise awareness of the threats the ocean faces, but also of the tireless work being done to protect it.
The Power Of Images
Citizens have a crucial part in the conservation of the natural environment, and their engagement is just as important as that of scientists. It might be difficult to get people involved and make them aware of the environmental issues that we face today and in the future. When it comes to issues that have an outsized impact on society, our artists have often used art as a mirror for self-reflection, and in this sense, photography has been a way of explaining a story by appealing to the very same senses that move us to action; that same emotive power is at work when it comes to discussing environmental problems.
At the end of 2022, Rolex announced a new collaboration with the world-renowned pair of conservation photographers, further strengthening the Perpetual Planet Initiative by supporting Mittermeier and Nicklen in their tireless work and highlighting the issues facing the world’s oceans while inspiring positive action.
Wanting to catalyse change, Mittermeier and Nicklen are exposing serious threats and calling attention to solutions. Their work has been lauded for its ability to show how climate change contributes to the
loss of biodiversity and how our most valuable ecosystems are being threatened with extinction.
They have collected over 765 species descriptions and over seven million photographs over the course of 45 expeditions. Although they have already achieved international recognition for their work and amassed a combined nine million Instagram followers, they remain committed to expanding their audience.
The Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative shares the values of Mittermeier and Nicklen and will help them reach a wider audience as they continue to offer a breathtaking perspective of the oceans. Two documentaries were made with Rolex’s support, both of which highlight the ocean as a place of adventure and discovery that is vital to the survival of all life on Earth and this is a place that can and should be kept perpetual. AM
Think of a Wes Anderson film and the muted greys and browns of a rain-soaked day in London are not the first things that spring to mind. But the UK capital is about to host the first European exhibition of photographs inspired by the vibrant aesthetic of the American film director.
Accidentally Wes Anderson: The Exhibition, which opens in South Kensington, London, on 8 December, is the latest incarnation of a phenomenon that began on social media six years ago when self-confessed “nerd” and “Anderson fan-boy” Wally Koval started an Instagram account with the same name. He envisaged it as a personal “travel bucket list”, on which he’d share pictures of places he wanted to visit. However, it quickly snowballed to become an online community sharing photographs of locations that reflected the distinctive, colour-saturated look of films such as The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Royal Tenenbaums.
The Instagram account has 1.8 million followers and has spawned a coffee table book, a jigsaw and an international exhibition that has visited Tokyo, Seoul and now London. The “gallery experience” will showcase more than 200 images from around the world which, in their symmetry, framing, pastel hues and attention to whimsical detail, echo Anderson’s trademark style. The photographs will be displayed across seven rooms, with themes including transport, sport and hotels/motels, with interactive elements which will allow visitors to immerse themselves in the imagery. There will also be a room dedicated to London – not a city renowned for its sun-soaked colour palette. So which London landmarks have made the final cut?
“You’re going to find everything from iconic buildings like Buckingham Palace to the tube station or laundromat that you pass every day,” says Koval. The London Transport Museum, Covent Garden tube station and lesser-known architectural gems such as Woolwich town hall and the James Smith & Sons umbrella shop on New Oxford Street will claim wall space. There will also be several blank spaces with an invitation for people to submit their own photographs of the city, which could go on display from January.
Koval estimates that about 85% of the photographs on display have been taken by non-professional photographers using mobile phones, and that a huge part of the appeal of the AWA phenomenon is its “democratisation” of photography. Brooklyn-based Koval and his wife, Amanda, receive between 2,000 and 3,000 photographs each month via their website; and hundreds more are shared via direct messaging and hashtag. The couple looks at every single one: “It would be rude not to.”
So what are the ingredients of a perfect Accidentally Wes Anderson shot? “There are certain guidelines that we could give you, like symmetry or some sort of colour palette or a nostalgia of sorts. But it’s more a case of you know it when you see it,” says Koval. “It’s funny because people will say ‘That’s not Wes Anderson’ but it has evolved and it’s now as much about the unique story behind a building rather than a defined set of aesthetics.”
Koval is adamant that AWA is not about slavishly trying to replicate shots from the films: “It shouldn’t look like it came straight from [a Wes Anderson] film. It should look like it came from a film that has never been produced and may never be produced but it would be awesome if it was.”
Nor is it necessarily about travelling to exotic locations in search of the unusual: “If you allow yourself to see it, you can see it anywhere. It takes your daily walk or your commute and it’s almost a filter that you put over it that allows you to create this fantastical reality, without having to go anywhere.”
Accidentally Wes Anderson: The Exhibition is at 81-85 Old Brompton Road, London SW7. It runs from 8 December 2023 to 17 February 2024. Adult from £10.99, child from £6.99, tickets at feverup.com
‘On 23 March 2023, Earth experienced the strongest geomagnetic storm in six years. Maria and I had significant doubts about this climb. We started the ascent of this 47-degree steep snowy slope during the blue hour, enduring -21C temperatures, while the northern lights lit up the southern sky. After overcoming the steepest part, Maria, ahead of me, spotted the tip of the cliff and exclaimed: “I see the cliff!” I’ll remember the adrenaline kick it gave me for a while. All I could think was: no way, we made it … now, how is the sky?’
Photograph: Virgil Reglioni/NLPOTY23
