I work with colour photography and the artist book.
I am interested in investigating and establishing internal relationships between a place or landscape and existing traditions and culture. The images suggest embodied cultural allegories and symbolisms, and at the same time attempt to questioning dichotomies as well as acknowledging historical references and details contained within everyday, mundane, literal places. I perceive space and landscape itself as a text, a text that is selected and constructed by society.
Developing from this particular interest in cultural identity and landscape, in recent projects I have established what I consider to be a more inward-looking approach to identity. The series Zuhause is an exploration of the family home as well as the local surroundings I grew up in, in Germany. The images deal with issues of cultural identity, belonging and dislocation, they are informed by cultural traditions, memory and myths. ‘Unchanging as the village is, he will never again see it as he did before he left. He is seen differently and he sees differently.’ (John Berger) World Famed Hooks and Eyes, is a piece of work looking at objects that are connected to domestiticity and therefore the female. I am interested in the ritual of handing down and passing on; the inheritance of values and skills transferred and evolved through the female line and how this activity is evidenced on everyday objects that are found around the home.
Resume.
Sylvia Waltering was born in Coesfeld, Germany in 1977.
She graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a BA (Hons) in History of Film and Photography with Practice in 2001 and with a MA Communication Design in 2002.
She now lives in Manchester where she also teaches on the BA(Hons) Photography course at Manchester Metropolitan University.
She is a member of the Righton Press, a MMU-based research group producing limited edition publications and hand-made artist books.
Her work has been included in a number of shows, both in the UK and abroad.
Selected exhibitions:
2007 – MIRIAD – Art & Design Work from MMU, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China;
2007 – Not Just Another Story, Publication;
2007 – Codex International Book Fair, Berkeley, California;
2006/7- Sitting Room, Artist Book exhibition, Manchester, Crewe and Bristol, UK;
2006 – Cover to Cover: A Fusion of Art and Text, RBSA Birmingham, UK;
2006 – Journeys, Artist Book exhibition, USA, Mexico, Chile;
2005 – Sex, Death and Flat Pack Furniture, Holden Gallery, Manchester, UK
