Artist
Emily Graham
Emily Graham (born 1983 in UK; lives and works in London) is an artist working primarily with colour photography.
Her practice often deals with elusive subject matters; a search for the unknown, a psychological state, the act of communication and interpretation. She is interested in creating a loose, expressive form of documentation that leaves room for subjective interpretations, embracing the suggestive and metaphorical potential of photographs.
She gained her BA (Hons) in Photography at the University of Brighton, and has recently completed her MA in Photography at the University of West England.
She was one of the recipients of the Magenta Foundation Flash Forward award 2017, selected as a Commended winner of the Genesis Imaging Postgraduate Award 2018, shortlisted for the Brighton Photo Fringe Open Solo 18, awarded third prize in the British Journal of Photography’s International Photography Award 2019, shortlisted for the Images Vevey Book Award, and most recently selected as one of the Jury’s Choice in the Prix Virginia 2020. Her work has been exhibited nationally & internationally, including as a solo presentation at Format Festival 2019 as part of their thematic Forever/Now, at Pingyao International Photography Festival, China, in Profound Movement group exhibit at Houston Centre for Photography, and most recently as a solo exhibit at Landskrona Foto 2020.
The Blindest Man
The Blindest Man is based on the real story of an unsolved treasure hunt, and is a reflection on the act of searching and what happens when you can't find the answers you are looking for. I'm interested in the notion of the treasure hunt as metaphor, and in turn, the search as a reflection of the photographic pursuit; the tensions between the promise of truth and the delivered partiality. Please find below further information on the work:
The Blindest Man explores the contradictions of a pursuit that has no answers and no ends. In 1993 an anonymous author buried a golden treasure, which has lain undiscovered in the landscape of France for more than twenty-five years. This unsolved mystery has obsessed treasure hunters ever since, and many continue to search, guided by a book of allusive clues that was originally released by the author when it was first buried. The author is now dead.
Although the puzzle was designed to be solved within a few years, a community fuelled by competition has developed around it. Rumour, misinformation and red herrings spread, confusing many individual routes of investigation.
In the making of The Blindest Man, I joined in this pursuit, acting as treasure hunter looking for photographs as I followed other hunters’ failed searches across France. I am less interested in solving the puzzle than in various individual interpretations of the clues, the notion of treasure hunting itself, and where this leads those who seek definitive answers: the dreams, fantasies and obsessions of individual searchers. Guided by the hunters’ experiences, journeys, routes, encounters, misinformation, dead-ends and so on, I follow in their footsteps, fascinated by the precarious nature of pursuit and failure, and in turn, photography’s own slippery relationship to truth, searching, interpretation, fantasy and obsession.
The photographs were made in France between 2015 - 2019. The work consists of 47 original photographs, and an accompanying booklet of research and ephemera.
Bebe Blanco Agterberg, a Dutch visual-storyteller working with photography, has a body of work that perfectly fits the book form. In 2019, Bebe took part in a Void’s activity that paired photographers and designers to make a zine in a day. Her politicized work stands out as strong and appealing. Her dealings with the Post-truth Era make the work relevant to our contemporary days.
Tereza Kozinc, who we first met in a book-making workshop, has a deeply personal, experimental work. Part of her practice is transforming it into zines and artist books.
Exploring the notions of ‘home’, Kozinc has an appealing diaristic approach that obscures the limits of reality and fiction. Joselito Verschaeve’s photography is technically meticulous. His editing process is very well-thought-out. He carefully plays with simple and banal subjects, elevating and re-signifying them. We were lucky enough to have Joselito as a trainee at Void in Athens. During his stay in Greece, he developed hand-to-hand with Void’s editor Myrto Steirou his forthcoming debut book that will be soon published by Void.
The subjectivity of the British photographer Emily Graham’s practice is what initially dragged Void’s attention. Her work leaves space for the audience’s interpretation, with rich and complex metaphorical potential. Her project ‘The Blindest Man’ is a captivating story about a real, unsolved treasure-hunting mystery. Open to interpretation and bringing much more questions than answers, ‘The Blindest Man’ will be Graham’s first book, to be published by Void in 2022.
Rocco Venezia is an Italian visual artist working mainly with photography. The subject of his works originates from a personal interest in literature as well as a certain awareness of European political and economic situations. Matters well-developed in his first book, ‘Nekyia’ (Witty Books).
Our selected talents of 2021 have, if not all, most of the attributes we look for in our books: well-defined personal approach to photography; a work open to interpretation, raising more questions than answers; and a creative blur of the frontiers between reality and fiction.
Being an independent publishing house, Void wishes to give voice to artists with bodies of work that might struggle to find venue elsewhere, that being due to the nature of their (dark) subjects, the experimental approach to their practice, or even the artist’s career moment. With this in mind, Void is extremely proud of fostering the photographer’s debut books.