Frieze (ongoing)
Frieze is a body of photographs depicting casts and copies of the Parthenon Frieze found in a wide range of places.
These include public buildings such as museums, civic centres and art schools, but I have also photographed casts in private homes, gardens and shop windows.
The pictures show how these stones have changed their meaning as they have changed location, across Britain, Europe and the USA.
But this positioning is not single or simple and each copy has its own resonance in its particular setting. Together they build a varied set of cultural and pictorial meanings.
Behind these images, there of course hovers the fraught question of where the actual Parthenon Marbles should be located. This project does not provide an answer, but it does suggest that the embedding of an artwork in an alien context, far from its site of origin or native habitat, can open up new meanings and new resonances.
Frieze is an ongoing project and more sites need to be visited before a final selection is made, but it is hoped that exhibition and publication of the full work can be undertaken in the near future.
A portfolio of pictures from Frieze with an accompanying text was published in the photography journal Source in 2009. It can now be viewed at their online archive: www.source.ie/archive
In September, 2015, I gave a talk about the project at the Symposium Antiquity and Photography at the Open University in London. The text of this paper can also be accessed here.
In Athens in 2019, I had the opportunity to exhibit and further develop Frieze with the exhibition Acropolis Redux at the American School. Further information and images can be found in the next section on that exhibition.
