England, Half English

The work England, Half English is taken from the 1961 publication of the same name by Colin Macinness (1914-1976). Macinness was an English novelist and journalist, and considered to be the first post-war style sub-culture essayist. His publication England, Half English consisted of several small, informal essays about the English, English culture and multiculturalism. Macinness observed the nuances of the everyday life of English citizens and the idiosyncrasies of the English environment. Considering the partial identity of being English, the project England, Half English (2017) takes its influence from the wishing to fit to a culture that you only partially belong. To undertake the project the artist has assumed a national consideration of region and place. Rather than avoid any cliché or stereotypes, the work flirts with English identity and regional differences. The two-year project will consist of creating numerous locations that reflect both a romanticised and realistic version of the foreign photographer within the English space. Inspiration by locations used by several English artists (e.g. Grayson Perry, John Constable, Chis Killip), the framework of the photographic work will take on the layout of Paul Graham’s A1: The Great North Road (1983) with forty images that consist of still-life, portraiture and landscape. Furthermore, the work is to do with photography what Macinnes has done through his writing; as stated by Dan Jacobson in the New Statesman: ‘to read England, Half English is to be reminded how few writers there are nowadays who are prepared even to attempt what should be the writer's first task; simply to tell us how we live . who will bother to look at the way we dress and take our holidays, who will listen to the music… [and to] try patiently and assiduously to see if we can learn something from the crowds, you and I among them, who swarm on the pavement outside his window.'