Rebecca Locke

Brooklyn / Bognor pt.1
The themes of image and identity, the power of fashion, the myth of ‘self’, ‘place’ and one’s relationship to it, thread through this series by Rebecca Locke. Brooklyn / Bognor captures the artist’s experience of New York City in contrast to her roots by the English seaside. Her return to Bognor signifies a very different life, and an acute awareness of both unwritten social rules and the promise of ‘the city.’ In Brooklyn the artist's experiences included singing in Sufjan Stevens’ band ‘Michigan Militia’, as a drummer in a Puerto Rican country music band and participant of the ‘electroclash’ fringe culture. Whether using photography, mixed media, creative writing or performance, Locke’s practice creates new narratives, often constructed as large scale, hyper-real compositions, saturated with colour. This series of twelve staged photographs utilises montage, performance and lens-based media, long exposures and sunshine, combined with digital layering to construct the narrative. The artist herself features in the images, wearing her Brooklyn clothes -- her uniform of freedom -- now worn in a very different context, the seaside town of Bognor. The images depict the charm and beauty of the English seaside, but hint at the uncanny, something of Brooklyn echoed in Bognor.

Wearing these clothes and making these images in Bognor became a performance, an intervention, an experience in overcoming an emotional resistance against standing out in the small town and a need to conform. Through the rich colours of these constructed scenes, the artist creates a fiction, or 'narrative of place'. Each image is a short story. A move to the city traditionally allows for the creation of a new narrative, a new self. Is it equally possible to reverse this, to create a new narrative of place? In these images, the photograph is an argument and Bognor is redefined, and the myth of place is challenged.

The myth of place and the power of story is further explored through: Brooklyn / Bognor pt. 2

Reading List

Life's Little Ironies by Thomas Hardy

The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor

The Origin and Description of Bognor or Hothamton; and an account of some

Adjacent Villages (with a view of the former Place) by J. B. Davis M.D. (1807)

Faith in Fakes, Travels in Hyperreality by Umberto Eco

"Time Out" New York Guide by "Time Out" (29 Feb 1996)

Review, Lanis Levy
I must confess to a close personal affinity with Rebecca Locke: She used to dream of adventures in New York City, while I sat in Brooklyn just dreaming of running away…. At our first meeting, at Goldsmiths we talked about Brooklyn, and ever since, we’ve had a Brooklyn thing going on. Looking at the photographs in Brooklyn / Bognor, I can feel the vibe of Brooklyn present on the streets of Bognor. Returning to Bognor after eight years in NYC, Rebecca found herself experiencing a sense of unease as she realised that she was no longer au fait with the unwritten social rules of her ‘hometown’. Her New York wardrobe just didn’t seem quite so appropriate for the English seaside, and she was left trying to figure out how / where to place both herself and her clothes.
The series Brooklyn / Bognor represents her attempt at visualising this experience. At first glance, one is drawn into the images by the intensity of their colour. The seductive photographs immediately evoke the beauty of the seaside, yet the longer one looks, the more uncanny they appear. A figure (in fact the artist), dressed in clothes that somehow don’t seem quite ‘right’ for the place or the occasion, is boldly making a stand, and the tension between the person and the place is almost palpable. As one works their way through the series however, the recurring presence of the figure begins to take on something of a soothing tone: she begins to seem to belong there and is gradually making the streets her own.

In fact, the production of this series has proved to be quite an experience for the artist. The more she photographed in Bognor, the more she re-discovered its beauty and charm, as well as the warmth of its inhabitants, and this again is reflected in the photographs. There is an underlying sense of ease with the locations, and Bognor’s own ‘Flat Iron Building’ is even present in one of the images. The more the artist photographed, the more Bognor revealed itself to her, and the original vibe ceased to be just a Brooklyn thing…

– Lanis Levy, October 2008