Artist
Marco Kesseler
Marco Kesseler is a British photographer with interest in portraits, food and contemporary social stories.
"My interest lies in the role of narrative as a reference point in representing contemporary social issues. I work between editorial assignments and long-term projects, taking pride in immersing myself within the place and people that I photograph, working with communities over an extended period of time."
Past works have documented the socio-political effects of the Ukrainian revolution; explored notions of escapism along The English Riviera; living in hiding with Albanian families persecuted in the age old traditions of blood feuds, as well as celebratory traditions in Greece. Previously exhibited works have been included in The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize, PhotoIreland Festival, Paris Photo, Magenta Flash Forward and The Renaissance Photography Prize and clients include The FT Weekend Magazine, The New York Times, TIME and National Geographic.
Harvest
Dotted across fields of the Wye valley and the foothills of the Malverns, dense avenues of fruit trees and hops bines dissect the gilded fields of wheat sown across the arable land. Elsewhere, the sun moves over swathes of translucent plastic; inside, rows of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries stretch as far as the eye can see. Waves of sound bounce against the polytunnels: indistinct voices, the tinny acoustics of Balkan music playing from a phone, the rustling of leaves and crates being stacked. Teams of people rush back and forth between plants and trucks picking as they go. On the surface harvest months in rural West Midlands appear bountiful and almost timeless, the epitome of the rural idyll.
However, over the past few years, Brexit has provoked many uncertainties within the agricultural industry, revealing the uneasy relationship between the nation’s reliance on seasonal workers, and growing English nationalism that often draws on nostalgia of the English pastoral, but which bears little resemblance to modern life. With 99% of seasonal staff in the UK migrating from Europe, this project looks to celebrate some of the individuals that sustain an essential industry.
During this moment of political and ecological flux, our reliance on these hidden communities has been highlighted as farms become increasingly understaffed with shortages of up to 30%. Last year, high profile campaigns recalling WW2 rhetoric for “a land army” to “pick for Britain”, failed to reconnect the British public with the land or attract people to work in the fields.
As every industry turns towards new technology to raise productivity and profits, and with reduced incentives for seasonal farm work, it seems inevitable that mechanisation will replace one of the last aspects of commercial agriculture to be completed by hand. Large farms are actively developing robotic picking systems with a view to begin use in the next 5-10 years. This is an opportunity to reflect on a moment in time and contribute to the evolving story of an essential workforce living on the periphery of society.
The curatorial team of the 8th Triennale has selected five emerging Futures artists in the field of photography who have particularly caught their eye:
What is Hien Hoang’s recipe? For me, it’s the mix of ingredients: Using still-life photography, surrealism and performance, she addresses clichés and prejudices about Asia. Her photos are bursting with exotic beauty, but a closer look reveals abysses that shake up ways of seeing and thinking. (nominated by Stephanie Bunk)
Engaging flows of history and social relation, Euridice Kala deploys the photographic image as a central means of meaning-making. Her artistic practice mines the fraught memories of the Atlantic slave trade and colonial-era Mozambique through the form of installations, performances, and publications. She is invested in the capacity of the archive to generate conceptual possibilities, and pursues these avenues from a Black feminist African perspective. (nominated by Oluremi C. Onabanjo)
Marco Kesseler is a UK-based British photographer with an interest in portrai- ture and the social stories of food security and agricultural infrastructures. Kesseler has a profoundly tender presence as a photographer. From his quiet portraits of daily life in Belarus in the run up the 2015 presidential election to his recent series on the role of seasonal work in the UK largely fulfilled by migrant workers whose labour is likely to be unprotected by Brexit legislation, the quiet resolve of Kesseler’s photographs resist dominant narratives of place, nationhood and nativist independence. (nominated by Gabriella Beckhurst)
Johanna Terhechte is exceptionally curious about the world and driven to undertake challenges. She is a thoughtful artist and a compassionate human being, two underrated character traits in artists. (nominated by Rasha Salti)
Laura Van Severen is a Belgian photographer based between Barcelona and Ghent. She is a promising talent who has, in her latest projects, taken a thorough look at the transformation of landscape and environment. Strata (2020) is an investigation of the effect of landfill and waste management, having traveled to Spain, Belgium, Romania, Portugal and the Netherlands. In this series, Laura maps a representative selection of altered ecosystems that are the pure consequence of our abusive system of consumption. With aesthetic sensibility, she blends artistic and journalistic approaches, pointing at harsh realities of our times with poetic means. With this nomination, I’d like to reinforce her courage working on complex, research-based photographic projects, as well as supporting her persistent aspiration to reconnect us with nature and with each other through diverse exhibition formats. (nominated by Cale Garrido)