Jermaine Francis: A Storied Ground

13 Oct

October 13th, 2022

Interview by Felix Allan @felix_allan

Comprised of black and white montage photography, Jermaine Francis’s new exhibition A Storied Ground investigates the reading and production of landscape photography as a neutral space, historically void of the depiction of a black presence. Positioning his subjects within the English pastoral environment, Jermaine transports the viewer firmly back into the 21st century. A successful reclamation of black history as British history, his subjects assert themselves within their environment defying the historical claims over places and spaces.

When receiving press releases for shows, you’re never sure what to expect. It can feel like the art world is talking in a way, and with such reverence, that you the viewer are too “out of the loop” to understand. Then every now and again someone sends through something exciting. The work of Jermaine Francis is just that. The information on his solo show, A Storied Ground, hit our inbox and we knew instantly we wanted to speak with him and capture a little of his perspective. Here, Felix Allan speaks with Jermaine about the artist’s experiences with identity, the reading and production of black art within popular culture, and what he has in store next.

Felix Allan: Hi Jermaine, to begin, let’s do a quick intro - can you tell me about your photographic practice?

Jermaine Francis: My photography in simple terms attempts to explore issues through a spatial critical practice. An attempt to explore a negotiation of our environment both physically and psychologically.

FA: Do you remember your first photograph?

JF: Yes, I took an accidental selfie whilst playing around with my mom’s camera at the age of around 6 or 7 years old.

FA: How would you describe your photographic style?

JF: I don’t frankly. I leave those discussions for other people to categorise to be honest, I try not to think about it, although I acknowledge that each project works in a photographic tradition.

FA: Which artists and photographers have inspired your work?

JF: A lot to be honest too many to mention.

FA: Your solo-show A Storied Ground, has just opened up in Paris. What do you hope people take away from visiting the show?

JF: I think there are a range of responses which could be considered from the work. On one level, the idea of black presence in a natural environment, or country side. Black identity itself not as a singular hegemonic presentation we see in media but rather as our own personal identity. Maybe a different dialogue with our relationship to our history and spaces. Also, the visual qualities, the sensation produced within the viewer from the image and its picture making qualities.

FA: What made you choose pastoral landscapes over perhaps historical buildings tied with a colonial past?

JF: The English Pastoral Landscape within imagery has always historically and predominantly been represented as a white domain. The English picturesque landscape has been used in the process of constructing an ideological position of English Nationalism. The Landscape is placed as a place of political and ideological neutrality, one in which we see the aesthetics as natural and our reading as given. I wanted to use this space to question who is considered a natural inhabitant of the British, more specifically in this case, the English Landscape. It’s a space where as a black person, histories are intertwined. As a British born person who is black, black history is not separated from ‘British History’. It is part of British History.

FA: That’s really interesting, would you say your work intend to express feelings of alienation then, or rather intend to actively claim the space of the pastoral which has such deep historical connections to the black experience?

JF: I would say both of those readings can be made from the work, although I tend not to use ‘expression’ but lean more towards terms such as reading and production. I think the motivation behind claiming a place or a space, can come from a process of alienation, as well as alienation leading to apathy & cynicism.

FA: Your work seems to make visible often overlooked realities, particularly the idea of the ‘organisation of exclusion’, do you have any views surrounding spaces of display in relation to your work?

JF: Yes, it’s a very relevant question and one I think about. In many ways work exists in galleries, those spaces can be suggested as spaces possessing an aura of the intellectual and visual but I don’t think that has to be exclusive to those spaces and always necessarily true. Popular culture as much as it can reinforce hegemonic positions, can also be a space that questions a mass audience. Adam Curtis, for example makes documentaries for popular culture but tries to introduce new ways of storytelling of our modern times. Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, for example articulates stories about a Black British experience. Isaac Julian before this made a feature film called Young Soul Rebels, all of these sit within popular culture, all use strategies of art discourse.

These spaces of display can act at times like a relay, and their influences no matter how big or small can echo, and are not always linear or obvious. I also feel that institutions can feel daunting for people outside of these artist spaces, in terms of class, race and marginal groups at times. It’s why I like Stuart Hall, a public intellectual, or the Open University, which I feel is one of the greatest social projects that has existed.

FA: What’s the significance of these working shot in black and white?

JF: I wanted to make reference to black and white landscape photography tradition, in particular, to say John Blakemore or Fay Godwin. Black and white photography has a strong relationship to landscape, the spectacular, and ideas of the sublime. I wanted to play with those signs and also to use to the mono chromatic qualities to play and disrupt, the space within the frame.

FA: What significance then does the position, posing and choice of your subjects have?

JF: I was looking to try and play with say simple classic positions but also wanted to have a suggestion of intimacy as well as ownership of one’s space between the viewer and subject. Those poses will have some significance in the sense of how the subjects are read. I did not want the people to feel passive but rather appear comfortable and possess a sense of ownership of their surroundings.

FA: Your previous project, Something that seems so familiar becomes distant, captured 2020 through documenting political uprisings, but in contrast this project appears more isolated and muted. A difference between the constant of nature and the pastoral, versus the continual change and development of the urban landscape. Could you talk a bit about the relationships between your work, and how you made the transition from that project to A Storied Ground?

JF: The project was called Something that seems so familiar becomes distant which took the viewer on a non-didactic, slightly disoriented journey through my eyes of lockdown in London. It acted in some ways as a metaphor for political and social turmoil going on at the time. The context of isolation was already in the psyche and was, and is, part of the most globally collective traumatic experiences we have encountered in the modern period since the Second World War.

Nature was also very much part of the book, both parks and green spaces, were significant and also spoke about the importance of our environment in relation to class, race, gender. As I have suggested, my interest is about our negotiation of space and time, so although on a visual aesthetic sense, the strategies may appear considerations but are in the same discourse.

In this project, I had from my own experience felt this universal position on blackness, what it can be. And how it is represented is problematic. I had thought about what it meant to be considered black and alternative, and those judgements that are placed on that identity.

As the photographer Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa talks about in his book Indeterminacy, he realised his ownership of his body was never his own. We are constantly placed in a space by things beyond our control. For example, if you’re a black person you can be seen as a goth but you’re a “black goth”, which itself holds some irony, you can’t be just a goth. And those judgements are and can be placed by both sides of the white and black communities. I myself saw and experienced this growing up and this project tries to play with these ideas conceptually.

FA: And finally, what projects are you working on next?

JF: I have a few projects I am currently working towards. One is called “once upon a time …….” A short history of violence. The other is called a A Post-Industrial Daydream.

Francis’s solo exhibition A Storied Ground is on view from the 28th September – 28th November, at galeriepcp, 8 rue saint-claude, 75003, Paris.

About Jermaine Francis

Jermaine Francis is a London based Photographer.

his practice works within, Documentary & Portraiture, in the format of personal driven Photo projects & Editorials, exploring the issues that arise from our interaction in the everyday environment.

He has published two books, Something that seems so Familiar in 2020 and in 2021 Rhythms from the Metroplex. He is currently working a on new book with publishers Here Press.

His work can be found in publications such as I-D, Beauty Papers, Autre Magazine, Twin, 10 Magazine, Sixteen Journal, More or Less Magazine, Office, Wall Street Journal, Disegno.

jermainefrancis.studio

@jermainefrancisstudio

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