#michael coldwell

Michael Coldwell - Ganister Composite II Meanwood Valley Colony Series 2016

Michael Coldwell - “ In Development”, Chinatown, Eastgate, Leeds (2016)

‘The land has been bought by the Chinese’, the carpark security guard told me, after wandering over to check I wasn’t photographing the cars. ‘They’re going to build a 32-storey hotel, higher than Bridgewater!’, he shouted over the traffic noise, bombarding us from the inner ring road. Hard to imagine amongst the rubble in this pretty deserted, run-down corner of the city, the demand for such a vast development; who will want to stay here, and for what reason?

As the old gas board is slowly torn down behind us, all I can see from here is the creation of yet more city-centre wasteland. This ‘car park’ we stand in (read: patch of weeds and gravel) has been undeveloped since the Victorian slums were cleared decades ago. Maybe the ‘Chinese’ will build this mythical hotel, and it will stand empty like these mythical Chinese cities I hear about, waiting for demand that will never come.

Conflux Coldwell - Ante Meridiem 

Michael Coldwell - Under The Stones At Kirkstall Bridge (2016)

The Forest of Leeds

Outside Time

This piece of video art was created as part of my ongoing research into time, hauntology and photographic practice. It is the culmination of several months work leading up to my transfer viva, and will be submitted in coming days as an example - indicative practice...

“A young girl gazes down at the street below, but the streets are empty... This work explores the idea that children have gradually vanished from public urban space over the past one hundred years or so. It does not seek to document or analyse this phenomenon, a task that could be better achieved by other means. Here photography is not used so much as evidence, but as a way of communicating an idea; the idea that a great vanishing has taken place without our noticing, and that by 'breaking time', by distorting reality, we can reveal how unsettling this greater truth really is.