Elina Brotherus - Wapping Project Artist's Talk

I went to a fascinating talk by the Finnish artist Elina Brotherus on Wednesday. The Wapping Project in London's Mayfair was showing her '12 Ans Apres' exhibition. The work is very poignant and compares double images of photos taken in the same place but twelve years apart. Brotherus lived and worked in France at one point as a newly graduated artist. She had limited French language skills and made some self portrait work showing french words for things dotted on notes about her apartment. In the accompanying images Brotherus returns, older and with much more life experience, to the same dorm room. This time the notes contain complete thoughts - reflecting on her life so far.

By pairing these works Brotherus is inviting the viewer to reference the hopes and dreams of a young person embarking on an adult life. The images feel calm and have a melancholy stillness to them. But they are also quite emotive in that I think a lot of viewers would be able to recognise the sense of lost hopes and different life paths taken from what was originally hoped.

After the viewing, the OCA students sat on the floor and listened to Brotherus speak about her work. She translated her thoughts written on the notes in the later images. The complete sentences highlight the passage of time and it was quite painful to hear Brotherus read them. The notes referenced getting older and looking back on what might have been - Brotherus's 'Annunciation' work which looked at the chronology of going through IVF treatment and gradually losing hope is clearly a big part of the artist's life experience.

The session was videoed by the OCA so I look forward to re-watching. I made some notes of points from her talk that particularly struck me:

• Just make the work! Never feel blocked. The photographer does not have to have a concept or a plan or an idea at the beginning. Just go out and make images.

• Once the work is made then it is time to analyse. Lay the work on a table and look for connections, ideas, resonances. Sometimes place ALL work, even from previous pieces together so that over-arching themes and new connections can be seen and worked on.

• Feel better about making my own personal work. It is OK to continue making work about life experience. You have to trust that people will see the honesty and integrity in this kind of work. This reminds me of OCA tutor, Clive White's comment about 'commonality of experience' during my assignment review at Brighton recently.

• Although very open in discussing the series '12 Ans Apres'; when Brotherus was asked a question that appeared to delve too deeply into her thought process behind the chosen location for a Landscape, she declined to comment further. She stated that these were her personal choices and not necessarily intended or necessary for public reading of the work. Brotherus also re-iterated the notion of the image having different readings than intended by the artist. Keep something back. Make the work accessible but it is okay to not discuss all aspects of a piece of work if it is too personal.