the gallery peeper

*disclaimer all views are my own

Since my return to London after the completion of my Erasmus Student Exchange Programme in Paris. I haven’t sat still (in a good way) what began as an accidental observation into student life in Paris, turned into a harrowing personal journey of realisation of unforeseeable change in a European country. We automatically have this romanticised view of Paris being the “city of love”, that we forget that Paris also birthed the anarchist movement and very much of those attitudes are still prevalent in today’s’ Paris. 

“The Révolution Never Left series” came about whilst I was living and studying in the Northern region of Paris for a period of eight months in 2016. It is characterised as a narration of photography taken within a French University, emphasising prolific subject matters which highlight the social issues affecting the French landscape. My aim was to highlight the radical notion of anarchy and anti-establishment culture. Each frame (see below) documents the remnants of vandalism within a public institution, as well as student protests which took place during my time there. We are witnessing the ‘culture shock’ of being away from home and the realisation of the current state of Paris. Which has led to an influx of protests over the latter part of the twentieth century. 

It challenges the binaries we continually construct between the ‘civilised’ and the 'uncivilised’. The French public’s volatile relationship with the French government. I wanted to focus on the idea of 'public space’ and more specifically on spaces where graffiti is visible, as this highlights the left-wing responses as a form of resistance against a broken system. The revolution never left and is being birthed within a younger generation. 

Being in Paris breathed a new lease of life into my creative direction as an artist struggling with ‘creative block and my creative juices have been overflowing with new ideas. Whilst I was in France, Britain sadly left EU which was bittersweet, as I was initially against the idea at first without having a real in-depth knowledge of what the whole Brexit debacle was about. But after doing my research, I now see the full scope of the powers that be and I feel that the EU will eventually be a problem to us in the near future. With that being said I can’t help but worry about the state of Erasmus and the students who will come after me, who may want to experience what I did as an EU/UK National. For now, I am glad to be back in London having just finished my degree.