Charlotte Gregory

Charlotte Gregory

BA Photography

1. Space and Place

A visual exploration of Foucault’s heterotopia and the experience of the city. This project is centred around the examination of human experience in the city from a woman’s perspective, using characteristics of Michel Foucault’s heterotopia as an underlying focus. Heterotopia is some-what ambiguous in its definition; the aim is to seek visual representation of the concept through photographic practice.
Architecture will be a significant feature, focusing attention on the design and limitations of the city – a place that is typically advertised as utopia in fiction, but in reality, harnesses more dystopic characteristics. For example, inequality, poverty, crime and pollution. This creates a juxtaposition between the two ideals society has placed upon these areas.
The project will explore two photographic outcomes responding to characteristics and definitions set out by theorists Yi-Fu Tuan and Michel Foucault. The project areas three key aims which firstly, include an exploration of city design, responding to the effects of architectural decisions on individual experience. Compositions and framing will focus on specific elements and details of space and architecture, rather than the landscape as a whole. The intention is to capture the imposing nature of high-rise buildings, intended to be printed at very large scales to replicate the overwhelming feeling viewers experience in real life.
The next aim follows a visual focus towards searching for ‘otherness’ in the city, seeking spaces that can be used to demonstrate or create new meanings. The final images will explore an element of escapism. Here, greater use of postproduction techniques including image layering and manipulation will be used to create more constructed and abstract spaces. This also links with last aim, to find a visual definition of Foucault’s characteristics of heterotopia. This will be shown through photographic work, but also through the exhibition experience. The idea is to create a contestation of space and a feeling that something is out of place for the viewer.