Naomi Hodgkin

For me photography is a practise that entails engaging with the world by immersing oneself in it. The photographer can create a frozen moment but all structures are in a relative condition, a transition, neither permanent nor temporary. The structure’s purpose, and our relationship to it, is also in a state of evolution. The ability to document and capture these relative structures is an important aspect in my photography.

During the past four years of study I have lived in some of the largest urban areas of the UK (Manchester and London). I was always drawn to the lowlife and the high-rise rather than the grandeur and the mall. The danger of imminent collapse in an abandoned Edwardian semi held more allure than the triumph over time represented by a Regency arcade. The implicit threat of a large South London estate was more tantalising than the safety represented by a Wren church.

I found beauty in these environments and learnt to record it, through digital and analogue photography, by exploring the endless juxtapositions of form, colour, texture, composition, light and shade.

But, the more I inhabited and explored these urban scenes, the more I was drawn to look beyond their aesthetic qualities towards the cultural landscape that lay behind the architectural and human forms.

Recently I have focused on city spaces that are undergoing a transformation based on political initiatives. Cycles of urban neglect, urban renewal and urban decay are themes that have become central to my work as has the examination of human interactions under such conditions and the ways in people function against a backdrop of social change, regeneration and economic re-evaluation. And how all these factors influence the everyday life that flows through these environments.

So, I am finding that photography is much more than the creation of “frozen moments”. Without having a political agenda (I neither feel qualified nor motivated to claim to have solutions to social “problems”) I, nevertheless, have become increasingly aware that by photographing that which is around me, by highlighting issues, by focusing on specifics, by interpretation and suggestion, by informing, entertaining and inspiring, I am also able to effect change in that which is around me.