Bridget Smith: Field Recordings

27 Jan - 11 Mar 2023 Golden Square

Working in photography, video and installation, Bridget Smith’s practice interrogates the relationships we have with our environment, exploring the spaces in which we seek connection and transportation. For her new exhibition Field Recordings at Frith Street Gallery, Smith considers the natural world, using a range of mediums, all connected by circular motifs which may evoke the sun and the moon. The viewer is asked to consider the universe from a multitude of perspectives, being present in the moment while contemplating the passing of time. As the exhibition progresses, the circular becomes cyclical referencing an endless turn and return.
Weather Report, 2019–22

Weather Report is an ever-expanding sculpture that documents the changing seasons with their fluctuating weather and light. The work takes the form of a disk that has been woven from freshwater bulrushes over two distinct periods of time, separated by almost three years.

The rushes, cut from the riverbank and exposed to the elements to dry out, range in colour from light ochre to vivid green blue according to the effects of changing weather and the passing of time. As the woven bulrush ages, it gradually fades towards soft golden brown, more prominent at the work’s centre where the material was harvested in the summer of 2019. In this way Weather Report continues to document its own exposure to light, paralleling the light sensitive nature of photographic material.
Harvest II, 2021
Weather Report sits in relation to Harvest a series of new photographs depicting sculptural piles of harvested bulrush. Drying in an ancient barn, the bolts lean and fold into one another forming cosmic whirls. Abstract and hypnotic, these patterns simultaneously conjure thoughts of what may be found beneath a microscope lens or in the swirling matter of the universe beyond. Occupying the gallery’s point of entry and departure, Harvest and Weather Report root the exhibition upon the earth beneath our feet, situating the viewer within its natural cycles.
'Weather Report is the material outcome of a meteorological process, evidencing the part of the earth’s atmosphere that produces the weather.'
Evident in Field Recordings is Smith’s ongoing interest in photography’s ‘expanded field’, pushing the medium into the realm of sculpture and moving image whilst also adopting some of photography’s earliest methods. Previous works include Smith’s large-scale cyanotypes, a process originally used to create architectural blueprints and chosen by the artist for the particularity of the image it creates. The series Blueprint for a Sea (2015) captures cinema interiors complete with their repetitive seat formations, which allude to the wave-like patterns and light reflections on the surface of the sea.

For Field Recordings Smith worked with tintype photographer Nicky Thompson to produce a set of small, postcard-sized ambrotypes and tintypes, processes developed in the 1850s as a more affordable alternative to daguerreotypes. Objects in Space capture and document certain natural objects, recalling still unknown realms such as the depths of the ocean or outer space. Despite their antiquated mode of production, the dense dark background brings to mind the liquid-crystal display screen of a mobile phone – a device that people receive most of their images on today.
'The ambrotypes and tintypes are part of my enquiry into the full spectrum of evolving photographic technologies since photography’s invention.'
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Silver Moons I, 2022
Silver Moons is a new series of tintypes depicting twelve luminescent spheres. Each hovers in what appears to be the deep black of space, conjuring thoughts of the moon and its phases. The photographs are created by exposing tin plates coated in silver nitrate in a large format camera, their materiality paralleling the metaphorical descriptions of the ‘silver’ light of the moon.
Double Moon, 2022

Double Moon is a 13:30 minute film of a moon rising over the sea in the evening sky, its reflection briefly mirrored in a rock pool below. Time slows as the waves roll in and out with a consistent rhythm and the light from the moon quivers, suspended on the surface of the water. Over the duration of the film, we observe the changing relationship between the two moons, the land, sea and sky during the transition from twilight to complete darkness, until all that remains is a central, mesmeric dance of circular light. Accompanying the film is a sound score of layered musical drones made in collaboration between the artist, the composer Laurence Crane and Barney Snow.
Bridget Smith: In Conversation
Artist Talk: The Photographers' Gallery
On the occasion of Field Recordings, Bridget Smith was joined in conversation by Ben Burbridge for a public talk at The Photographers’ Gallery on Thursday 2 February, 6.30pm.

Click here to access a recording of the event.

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