Die Surrealistische Lumpensammlerin - Urban Incongruences, Dialectical Landscapes and Photography

Abstract

The research paper titled Die Surrealistische Lumpensammlerin – Urban Incongruences, Dialectical Landscapes and Photography is an exploration and extension of the creative work. Throughout the paper I have used the theoretical figure of the Surrealist Ragpicker to frame my photographic practice that is categorically documentary in style and landscape in subject. I define myself through the act of roaming, as the contemporary equivalent of the Surrealist Ragpicker. A metaphorical character developed in the writing of Charles Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, Susan Sontag and Deborah Parsons, I adopt the theoretical underpinning of the ragpicker as a framework for my methodology and discuss reoccurring themes within the creative work. The modern ruin, the urban incongruence and dialectical landscapes are revealed as subjects of interest to the Surrealist Ragpicker. The resounding themes within my creative work (exhibited as 7 large-scale prints and an artist’s book) will be discussed with reference to some poignant images I made two years prior to my Masters candidature (from the series Ceaseless Replacement of the New), as well as with reference to artists, theorists and writers such as: Eugène Atget, Lee Friedlander, Robert Smithson, Richard Wentworth, Zoe Leonard, Berenice Abbott, Rose Macaulay, Brian Dillon, Emma Fraser, Romain Meffre, Yves Marchand, Edward Burtynsky, Stephen Shore, John Szarkowski, Simryn Gill, Martha Rosler, Rick Poynor, Geoff Dyer, Robert Ginsberg, Walker Evans and Terry Falke.