We are very pleased to announce our Guest Speaker for our Annual Photography Lecture series on the the 28th November to be Jane Hilton.
Jane Hilton, photographer
and filmmaker lives in London. She started out as a classical musician,
graduating in 1984 with a BA (Hons) in Music and Visual Art from Lancaster
University. Her love of photography brought her to London, working as an
assistant for numerous fashion and advertising photographers, before going it
alone in 1988. Early work included both fashion and editorial alongside her
documentary projects, which is the mainstay and passion of her work today.
"My
work is about the extraordinary realities of ordinary people's everyday lives,
revealing their individual characteristics and ways of being that one so often
overlooks."
It
was on her first trip to Arizona in 1988, that she discovered an obsession for
America and American culture. The contradictions in American society and the
American dream is a recurring theme. Her work in Las Vegas is the epitome of
this, where the line between fantasy and reality is constantly blurred. The
transient nature of Vegas mixed with the incessant gambling philosophy provides
a unique breeding ground for characters who live out these contradictions. Her
series "Forever Starts Now" on the McDonald's style wedding culture
illustrates this.
From
proclamations of everlasting happiness in Vegas, Jane hit the empty desert
roads of Nevada ending up 350 miles away near Reno, where a roadside brothel
called 'Madam Kitty's Cathouse' caught her eye. This chance encounter became a
two year project and resulted in a ten-part documentary series for the BBC,
"The Brothel / Love For Sale", as well as a series of exhibitions on
desert landscapes, pimps and prostitutes.
Inspired
by a commission in 2006 to photograph a 17 year old cowboy, Jeremiah Karsten,
who travelled 4,000 miles on horseback from his native Alaska to Mexico, Jane
set off on her own four year pilgrimage, criss crossing the cowboy states of
Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Texas, New Mexico and Wyoming to capture America's 21st
century cowboys which culminated in her 2010 book - "Dead Eagle
Trail".
For
her next book Jane has returned to the brothels of Nevada. "Precious"
is a collection of intimate nude portraits of working girls from the only state
in America where prostitution is legal. The women are all from different
cultural backgrounds and the variety of ages and body shapes represented
challenge the traditional idea of beauty. Jane was privileged to stay in many
of the brothels during this project and the trust and friendship this
engendered is clear in the portraits.
Her
latest book “LA Gun Club” accompanied an exhibition this year at Eleven Gallery
and Photo London. Following her obsession with American culture she visited an
indoor shooting range in downtown Los Angeles. Home to the legal pastime that
allows anyone over the age of ten, to shoot live ammunition at target posters
with a variety of guns that included a Kalashnikov AK47. Jane photographed the
shot up targets and interviewed the shooters to make a compelling project.
Lecture Details:
Anglia Ruskin University
East Raod
Lord Ashcroft Building
LAB003
at 6.30pm
