Jennifer Pattison
Rice Pudding Moon & The River of Dreams
Folklore storytelling has been a particularly effective vehicle used to keep alive traditions that date back for millennia. For communities of diaspora in particular, the maintaining and passing-on of the myths, heroic acts, and traditions that forge a collective sense of belonging to a particular community has been treated as a delicate flame that should never be allowed to die. In Punjabi culture, loris (lullabies) have occupied a prominent position in the nurturing of that flame, maintaining a rich tradition that helps to nurse a connection with Punjab’s vibrant rural heritage.
Punjabi loris carry a subtle dualistic purpose, serving as tools that bring the folklore traditions forward for the diasporic community while at the same time strengthening the intimate relationship between mother and child. It is this very personal relationship between lullabies, motherhood, generational and geographical distances that London-based Jennifer Pattison chose to focus on, by drawing on her own experiences of motherhood and intimacy. |
The work was produced as part of ‘Re-imagine India’, a 2016 Arts Council England and British Council initiative that sought to build links between Punjabi women in the UK’s Black Country and their relatives back in the Jalandhar and Patiala regions in India - with the Black Country boasting one of the largest Punjabi diasporas outside of India. Creative Black Country, an audience development programme based in the region commissioned four women photographers (2 Indian and 2 British) to produce work by interpreting themes linked to Punjabi culture, diaspora and womanhood. The collective works were exhibited in ' Girl Gaze: Journeys Through the Punjab & the Black Country, UK', which opened in March 2018 in the Punjab, and will be part of Multistory's Blast festival in May 2019.
Pattison’s images reflect the intimate serenity of a lullaby choosing to capture these fleeting moments – what she calls: ‘the moments between’. This is not the kind of photography that presents a significant subject through obvious foreground-background framing, and the viewer’s eye is not forced to pay attention to a specific visual element. Instead, the images invite exploration and evoke feelings of intimate serenity, safety and motherhood. |
"I’m interested in the photographs taking on the function of the source material, for Rice Pudding Moon & The River of Dreams I was working with lullabies so I wanted to create imagery, which conjured fleeting moments between wake and sleep.”
In ‘Rice Pudding Moon & The River of Dream’ we are encouraged to feel, and not to merely observe. Pattison carries us with skill, at times travelling through serene moon-lit landscapes, feeling the warmth of a maternal embrace, or dreaming of the uncle in the moon. A sense of well-crafted magical realism binds together the work as a story and not only as individual images. Through conversations with women in Patiala and the Black Country, Pattison came to understand that the connection between lori singing and the women’s contemporary lifestyle may no longer be there, the result of a changing lifestyle in both countries. This is hardly unexpected; in an age of unprecedented technological ubiquity and easy access to information, the reliance on folklore storytelling as a vehicle for the continuation of tradition is diminished. |
Nevertheless, the power of those intimate ‘moments between’ to create maternal bonds remains as strong as ever. Despite what effect the geographical or generational distance may have had on Punjabi lori, through ‘Rice Pudding Moon & The River of Dream’ Pattison is offering a re-imagined take for a new generation of Punjabi mothers.
|
All images ©Jennifer Pattison
Bio
Jennifer Pattison's portraits are arresting and full of unselfconscious expression. Her work is interested in where people go to when their mind is elsewhere, illustrating the silences - the gaps in between, the fleeting worlds between sleep and wake. She is British and produces her work using medium format analogue film. Jennifer received her BA hons in Photography from the London College of Communications in 2000.
Having begun her career as a photographers' agent Jennifer has focused on her own practice since 2012. Jennifer has received numerous awards internationally. A portrait from her project In Sight of My Skin won the second prize at the prestigious Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize in 2012 at The National Portrait Gallery, London and first prize winner at the International Photography Awards (Lucies) 2013. She was Magenta Flash Forward emerging photography winner 2013 and Honourable mention, International Photography Awards (Lucies), 2014. Her work has been published in the Financial Times Magazine, Oh Comely, It's Nice That, i-D, Vogue India, Port Magazine and the British Journal of Photography among others. In September 2014 she was invited by Brazilian collector Frances Reynolds to be artist in residence at Instituto Inclusartiz, Rio de Janeiro.
In 2017 Jennifer was commissioned by Creative Black Country as part of Arts Council England and British Councils Re-Imagine India cultural exchange programme, working in partnership with Multistory (UK) & Nazar Foundation (New Delhi). Earlier this year one of her portraits was selected from over 13,000 entries as one of the 100 winning images by The British Journal of Photography's Portrait of Britain; the winning images were displayed on JCDecaux screens across the country this September. The portrait also features in the first ever Portrait of Britain book, published by Hoxton Mini Press. She is currently a tutor on the BA Hons Photography course at Coventry University.
www.jennifer-pattison.com
Having begun her career as a photographers' agent Jennifer has focused on her own practice since 2012. Jennifer has received numerous awards internationally. A portrait from her project In Sight of My Skin won the second prize at the prestigious Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize in 2012 at The National Portrait Gallery, London and first prize winner at the International Photography Awards (Lucies) 2013. She was Magenta Flash Forward emerging photography winner 2013 and Honourable mention, International Photography Awards (Lucies), 2014. Her work has been published in the Financial Times Magazine, Oh Comely, It's Nice That, i-D, Vogue India, Port Magazine and the British Journal of Photography among others. In September 2014 she was invited by Brazilian collector Frances Reynolds to be artist in residence at Instituto Inclusartiz, Rio de Janeiro.
In 2017 Jennifer was commissioned by Creative Black Country as part of Arts Council England and British Councils Re-Imagine India cultural exchange programme, working in partnership with Multistory (UK) & Nazar Foundation (New Delhi). Earlier this year one of her portraits was selected from over 13,000 entries as one of the 100 winning images by The British Journal of Photography's Portrait of Britain; the winning images were displayed on JCDecaux screens across the country this September. The portrait also features in the first ever Portrait of Britain book, published by Hoxton Mini Press. She is currently a tutor on the BA Hons Photography course at Coventry University.
www.jennifer-pattison.com