Preview of New Art Photography Project On London Inspired By T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” – City Hall,Thursday 30th May, 6.30 – 10 Pm
In T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land” – probably the most important poem of the 20th Century – London is the “Unreal City” in which most of the characters in the poem have their entrances and exits. International award winning photographer Adriaan van Heerden’s beautiful new art photography project takes inspiration from Eliot’s great poem to present a topical, poignant and challenging view of London at a highly significant time in its history. http://bit.ly/avh-pr190401-unrealcity
Van Heerden’s project, titled “Unreal City”, is, in essence, a photographic conversation with “The Waste Land”. It comprises 85 black and white photographs which present London as if it were the waste land. The project reflects many of the themes of the poem: a strong sense of alienation; people’s inability to connect meaningfully; the cruel demands of the City; the failure of religion to provide comfort in this broken world; and the apparently unbridgeable divide between rich and poor. Homelessness and the waste of young lives due to crime feature as themes in the project.
With the help and support of the Mayor of London, the GLA and members of the London Assembly a performance preview of the project will be held at City Hall in London on Thursday 30th May, from 6.30 pm to 10 pm. At the event a number of acclaimed actors and other VIPs(including Leee John and Leroy Logan MBE) will read the relevant lines from the poem while a selection of the images from the project are projected onto a large screen.
The purpose of the event is to raise awareness of the forthcoming book – which will be launched at Bonhams in London (the international fine art auction house) in December 2019 – and the international touring exhibition (which will commence in 2020). Guests include High Commissioners, Cultural Attachés, London Mayors, press, media and many other VIPs.
The project has already attracted high profile endorsements from Bernard O’Donoghue and Laura Noble. Bernard O’Donoghue is Emeritus Professor of Medieval English and Modern Irish Poetry at Oxford University and a Whitbread award winning Faber poet. Laura Noble is a Londongallerist, art collector and organiser of the FIX Photo Festival. O’Donoghue and Noble have both written essays for the book. Van Heerden has written an Introduction to the book as well as notes to most of the pictures.
A number of charities will benefit through the project (including Tutus Househttp://tutushouse.co.uk and Homeless Worldwide https://www.homelessworldwide.com). Part of the event on the 30th May will be given over to a charity auction to raise funds for Tutus House. A number of VIPs (including Dame Judi Dench, Ms Joanna Lumley and Mel Gaynor) have already contributed high value items for the auction.
The current plan for the event on 30th May is as follows:
- arrival & registration — about 30 minutes
- cocktail reception — about 30 minutes
- introduction — about 10 minutes
- performance (by acclaimed actors & other VIPs) — about 17 minutes
- panel discussion about the project (with Whitbread award winning poet Bernard O’Donoghueand others) — about 45 minutes
- screening of charity single in aid of Homeless Worldwide — about 10 minutes
- auction in aid of Tutus House — about 30 minutes
- meet and greet — about 30 minutes
Just as there are several different voices in “The Waste Land”, so there are a variety of styles and subjects in “Unreal City”. Van Heerden’s “monochrome meanderings” (as Laura Noble has called them) around cityscapes, architecture, street photography and portraits of people are juxtaposed with extracts from the poem in a process that Bernard O’Donoghue describes as “creative mismatching”. Laura Noble articulates the effect of this device as follows:
“Time and time again, [Van Heerden] pinpoints snapshots of a city teeming with troubled souls in a constant state of flux that seems to move as quickly as his shutter. Just as Eliot constructed a fragmented narrative, Van Heerden’s trail leads left, right, north, south, east and west, and in no particular order. He is a situationist with a camera instead of a pen, submerged in the oppression of the urban sprawl.”
The event is being hosted by Mr Andrew Dismore, London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden. He said: “This is an imaginative and unique project, bringing together excellent photographs of the capital with T.S. Eliot’s iconic poetry as a perceptive commentary still relevant to today.”
Rara Plumtre, Co-Founder of Tutus House, said: “Unreal City opens up interesting conversations about wealth inequality, homelessness and the vulnerability of the less fortunate in our society, with a particular focus on London. Tutus House is proud to be associated with this amazing project and making a real difference to those who have been economically and socially disenfranchised, for whatever reason.”
Copies of the limited edition book are now available to pre-order via Van Heerden’s website(https://www.adriaanvanheerden.com/shop/photobooks/unreal-city-limited-edition-art-photography-book/).
Originally from South Africa, Adriaan came to photography via a PhD in Philosophy at King’s College, Cambridge, where his dissertation focused on the fundamental roles that tragedy, humour and love play in our shared human existence and experience of the world. These topics have continued to inform his visual art as well and he now uses photography as a kind of poetry to explore these themes. His artistic ambition is to find beauty in fragility and brokenness and to capture this poetic vision in the two dimensions of photographs.