(images L & R: Chloe Lelliott, Untitled from the Series Returned 2016)
As the latest edition in our series of interviews with BPF16 exhibitors we ask Chloe Lelliott to tell us about her formative experiences with photography and the work she is showing as part of Crossing Boundaries, one of the exhibitions you can see at the BPF Collectives & Festivals Hub in the Former Brighton & Hove City Council staff canteen at King’s House until 30 October.
BPF: Can you tell us a little about your earliest experiences with photography and what drew you to the medium? What images inspired you at that time?
Chloe Lelliott: I got a camera at 16 and went travelling with it at 18 and it slowly grew from there. I used to go and explore waste lands and abandoned buildings with my camera, I loved the way it gave me an excuse to be nosy and visit places that I wouldn’t usually see. When I first got into photography I liked quite traditional work like Ansel Adams and Robert Frank and then William Eggleston. Dolores Marat’s work I really loved and still do, the colours and softness of her images. She takes poetic images of everyday scenes in cities and brings a melancholy and surrealness to them that is beautiful.
(Image: Chloe Lelliott, Untitled from the Series Returned 2016)
BPF: How has your relationship with photography evolved since then?
CL: I would automatically think my relationship has changed loads but fundamentally I am attracted to the same subjects as I was 15 years ago when I first started studying photography. I was always interested in photography’s relationship with time and how narratives are told and still am now. In the past I would of seen myself more as a documentary photographer and would not of manipulated imagery where as now I am interested in a more experimental and rough way of working. Capturing that perfect image is not so important to me anymore, I’m more concerned with what I want to show or communicate through a whole project.
BPF: Where do you find inspiration? How do you find your ideas?
CL: I find most of my inspiration through films and books. Any films with a surreal edge, like The Lobster by Yorgos Lanthimos, Spike Jones’s Her, films by David Lynch, Japanese horror and science fiction. Books by Haruki Marakami, magical realism or science fiction. Sometimes I will visit a place that sparks inspiration for a project like my series “Returned” shown at this years Fringe. I went to a place called Shermanbury near Henfield and got a really strange uneasy feeling from the place and that inspired that project. I find my ideas grow and evolve as the project does, I usually start with a feel/mood I want to create and then the ideas around that change as I take more images.
BPF: Can you tell us a little bit more about the work you are exhibiting at Brighton Photo Fringe 2016?
CL: My series “Returned” came from visiting a village called Shermanbury, it had quite a haunting otherworldly feel with old dilapidated buildings. I started to look for places and create images that mirrored that feeling. I photographed at National Trust sites and villages in Sussex. I’m interested in how places can communicate a sense of history and the dramas of the past inhabitants. “Returned” links to how these places can connect to our own memories and enable an uncanny sense of being there before. For a moment, when we see a photograph we can feel as if we have returned to that scene and there is a haunting sense of déjà vu. The long panorama of layered images in “Returned” is made up of digital images, polaroids and two images with people which are found photographs. Some of the polaroids had defects which were accidental but I decided to keep as I liked the link these defects made to the materiality of photography and memory.
See more of Chloe Lelliott’s work here: www.chloelelliott.com
Chloe Lelliott’s work is featured in the exhibition Crossing Boundaries alongside the work of Alison Bettles and Alison Stolwood, 1–30 October, Thurs–Fri 12:00–18:30 Sat–Sun 11:00–18:30 at the Collectives & Festival Hub a King’s House, Grand Avenue, Hove, BN3 2LS.