Nocturne
An exhibition of photography that ponders the nature and significance of our relationship with the night.
Welcome to Nocturne, my first exhibition at The Curious Rabbit. This body of work was created in 2020, and perhaps in response to the year that was, it ponders the nature and significance of our relationship with the night. The photography is presented as a frieze - a journey across the gallery’s generous white wall.
Earth is forever turning on its axis, and within each of its twenty-four-hour cycles, all 7.8 billion of the planet’s human inhabitants - along with the entire animal kingdom, in fact - experience a succession of day and night. Irrespective of who we are or where we live, we have these relationships in common, with days and nights inevitably turning into weeks, months, years and eventually, a lifetime.
One night last winter - in the very thick of the night - I woke up, went to the small room that I used to sleep in and instinctively reached for my camera. The small boxes at the base of the lamp that I photographed contain jewellery that belonged to D and M. I’m drawn to the pieces not because of their monetary value, but because of their capacity to trigger deeply personal memories.
The next day, when I looked at the image I had captured, I instinctively entitled it - and the room that had given rise to it - The memory room. Around this time, the exhibition at The Curious Rabbit began to look like a distinct possibility, and with that in mind, I decided to harness my new photograph to a promo that would not only announce the show, but also say something of my relationship with the night. Perhaps it also says something of yours?
The memory room - as in, the space - eventually gave rise to a second image within the body of work - Papillons - which sits in the same cluster as its predecessor at the centre of the frieze.
Inevitably, this sense of ‘proximity’ became a key element of the project, due largely to the fact that I made the work in relative isolation while Covid-19 played havoc with the world around me.
Accordingly, I photographed around my house and in my neighbourhood - almost exclusively - and while the base of the project is thereby specific, the night, by comparison - and by its very nature - is known for offering a raft of possibilities.
The challenge of the work, in fact, was to do justice to those possibilities, and with the show now up and running, my hope is that courtesy of what is on offer, visitors will be encouraged to reflect on their own relationship with the night.
JOEL MARKHAM
Summer 2021