ALAN GIGNOUX and CHLOE JUNO The Powers That Be

Description

ALAN GIGNOUX and CHLOE JUNO The Powers That Be

ALAN GIGNOUX and CHLOE JUNO The Powers That Be. Inspired by political campaign posters from the Polish 2023 parliamentary elections, the photobook contemplates the links between electioneering and political outcomes.

Whilst travelling around Poland researching coal mining Alan Gignoux and Chloe Juno were struck by the faces of politicians beaming at them from colourful political banners wherever they went. They used some Fuji Instax Wide Film left over from another trip to document the banners, zooming in on the features of these potential changemakers. The resulting image series investigates the peculiar visual language of political advertising. In The Powers That Be, these are set against photographs documenting Polish coal mines, whose future would be determined by the results of the election.

Throughout The Powers That Be photobook, the Instax banner images are presented full bleed to dramatize close-ups of isolated features from the politicians’ faces, such as eyes and lips, and to emphasize the fleshiness of the oversized portraits. These are interspersed with the coal mine images, photographed by Gignoux using a 35mm digital camera. On each of the coal mine photographs the designer has superimposed a cut-out of one of the Instax political banner images with the white border intact, creating jarring juxtapositions.

Coal Mining

At the end of the book, tucked into a glassine pocket, there is a ‘fortune teller’ game printed with politicians’ features. Play the game and you will be ‘rewarded’ with different political outcomes.

Limited edition of 200.

Alan Gignoux

Alan Gignoux is an award-winning documentary photographer and founder of Gignoux Photos, which produces documentary photography and film projects focussing on socio-political and environmental issues around the world.

Gignoux is committed to exposing the effects of displacement on communities around the world. His most exhibited body of work, Homeland Lost, juxtaposes portraits of Palestinian refugees with their former homes in Israel. He has been a regular visitor to the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria, building relationships and recording camp life since 2005. For his current project, “You can see me, but I don’t exist,” he uses a camera obscura to document asylum seekers living in limbo in European cities.

Chloe Juno

Chloe Juno is a Creative consultant, Visual Artist, Curator, and Co-Lead Documenting Britain, project manager, producer, photographer, and photo editor with a real love of photography and life stories. Primary focus documentary photography with 15 years experience as a photo editor and project manager editing award-winning photography. Current long-term photo project ‘Someones Rubbish’ 5 years of daily photos looking at life now via the objects people discard.

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