ASCENSION (2023)
After a time, deep in this place I found scenes I seemed to recognise, memories I seemed to own. It was a city and something more, a garden perhaps, or another realm. No matter how far I walked, the paths and the byways never seemed to end. What was I looking for? I knew only that I was looking.
Ascension is my latest photoseries. It won Gold in the Street category at the Analog Sparks 2024 awards, and Second Place for Zines and Photobook Photographer of the Year. An earlier version of the series received an Honourable Mention at the Lucie International Photo Awards 2020, in the Professional Analog/Film: Fine Art category, as well as Honourable Mentions at the Tokyo International Foto Awards 2022 and the Moscow International Foto Awards 2021.
Featuring photographs taken in London, Venice, LA and Tokyo, Ascension explores the hidden territory of the mind and the heart, through the outer world of a hybrid cityscape. Taken during a time of deep instability in my life, which included the death of my first wife, the photographs reflect an inner journey that I needed to complete, through fear and grief, to find lasting courage and clarity of mind. Bringing together street, landscape and abstract photography, to build an integrated world in which reality is open-ended, yet ever-enriching, Ascension moves through light and dark, life and death, to 'make the darkness visible'.
EXHIBITION + PRINTS
An exhibition of Ascension took place at AOCF 58 Galleria Bruno Lisi in Rome, April-May 2023. It was curated by Camilla Boemio.
It was supported by the Arts Council of England and Birra Morgana.
Contact me for details regarding prints: matt@matthew-smith.co.uk
photobook
Ascension is now available as a hardback photobook in a growing number of photobook shops. It is available to order internationally on my website here.
It was published in the autumn of 2023 by Red Turtle Photobook.
The book includes the full prose-poetry text I wrote to accompany the 47 images that make up the photoseries.
It features a foreword by Erin Li, visual arts curator at the Delfina Foundation, formerly at Whitechapel Gallery, London.
Edition: 500. 86 pages. 22 x 16.5 cm
