Close Calls: Coastal Kent Street Photography by Marianne Dissard
Multi-talented artist Marianne Dissard presents her first solo photograph exhibition at Agitate Gallery in September!
About Close Calls: Coastal Kent Street Photography by Marianne Dissard
STREET SNAPS OF KENT COASTAL TOWNS IN EDINBURGH
In October 2020, singer Marianne Dissard found herself in Kent with her touring cancelled and a long winter ahead.
With a backdrop of the pandemic and until England 're-opened' with the start of the vaccination campaigns, the French-born chanteuse turned to a new practice, street photography, to make sense of her immediate world.
Over the course of the next six months, Dissard went on to assemble a clear-sighted snapshot of post-Brexit life in the corner of the UK's southeastern coast she called home.
Her street photographs include surreal coastal urban landscapes, decimated high streets, and striking portraits of residents made during winter and spring 2021 in, clockwise along the coast, Herne Bay, Margate, Ramsgate, Sandwich, Dover, Folkestone. These were made into two photobooks, including England Re-opening, available at AGITATE.
Born in the French Pyrénées, Dissard lived in Tucson, Arizona, for three decades before moving to the UK in 2017. She relocated from Kent to Glasgow in early 2022 and to Coatbridge in 2023.
The multi-talented artist is now set to present her first solo exhibition in Edinburgh, after On A Good Day You Can See France at The Glasgow Gallery of Photography in 2022 and, also in Glasgow, Second Looks at SaltSpace Gallery in 2023.
Close Calls: Coastal Kent Street Photography by Marianne Dissard opens on Wednesday 6 Septembre at AGITATE in Edinburgh and runs until Wednesday 20 Septembre.
The opening reception will take place on Friday 8 September from 6 to 9pm.
AGITATE Gallery is open 12noon to 6pm, Wednesday through Sunday. Entry is free.
Dissard explains: “I have only been living in Scotland for a little over a year now but have felt very warmly welcomed by its creative community, from musicians to photographers and artists.
After last year's immersive installation in Glasgow and a more intimate show this year, again in Glasgow, I'm looking forward to share my street snaps of Kent with the Edinburgh photography community."
About Marianne Dissard:
Born in France in 1969, Marianne Dissard studied film production at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, initially pursuing a career as a documentary film director.
After moving to Tucson, Arizona, she was encouraged by Calexico's Joey Burns to sing and recorded several albums of original music (her first, L'entredeux, composed by Burns himself) with members of Giant Sand, XIXA, Calexico, and Orkesta Mendoza, and toured worldwide for over a decade. Her latest album, Rappel*le, was released in April 2023.
Her debut memoir, Not Me, published in 2019, was adapted for the stage. When its touring was cancelled in 2020, Dissard changed tack, bought a camera, and set out to record the pandemic in her adopted hometown of Ramsgate in Kent.
About Marianne Dissard's photography:
Although firmly rooted in a classical tradition of American urban photography, Marianne Dissard, who trained in documentary filmmaking and is a seasoned performer, favours using photography as one only of several tools in site-specific audio installations and stage productions.
Dissard works primarily outdoors, with a documentary eye, on environmental portraiture. Her sensitivity to the quirks of the human body in motion stems from her experience of stage performance and collaborations with contemporary choreographers. Her decade working as a documentary filmmaker keeps her alert to shared narratives ("private troubles and public issues" C. Wright Mills). With an innate sense of the absurd and surreal, Dissard makes arresting scenes of the mundane. She is deeply influenced by the photography of Garry Winogrand and Stanley Kubrick.
Dissard is currently photographing in the Central London neighborhood of Knightsbridge. Originally conceived as background visuals for her latest stage production Souvenir of England inspired by Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir, Part 1, and commissioned by Volkstheater, Vienna, the new series premieres in August 2023 as an installation for Ramsgate Festival of Sound.
Her work has been exhibited at Turner Contemporary in Margate (2021 Open group show), at the Laurent Delaye Gallery in Ramsgate (fall 2021), in solo shows in Paris, France (Louxor Cinema Salon, winter 2022) and Glasgow (The Glasgow Gallery of Photography, summer 2022, and SaltSpace in summer 2023), and as a large-scale outdoor public installation in Ramsgate in summer 2021 for Ramsgate Festival of Sound. Three large metal prints remain on permanent display in Ramsgate Harbour, with a fourth, Fuck BoJo, installed in Ramsgate Music Hall. She has published two books of photography.
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