On 29/04/20 we had Kelly O’Brien come and visit to give us a lecture about her work and then a tutorial for a few of us to discuss our work. Like all our visiting speakers Kelly started with discussing her own work and inspirations. Kelly discovered photography in her late teens after struggling with getting along at school. She then went onto studying film and media before falling in love with photography, going on to study it at Nottingham Trent University. However, she found this to a challenging experience and it wasn’t until her final third year that she was able to create work that she was proud of. At this stage O’Brien really discovered what she was interested in which was creating work that dealt with class and society. Here is where she went onto be interested in working with the migrant workers she knew. Additionally this lead onto her project about her house mate Osman Mohammed who was an asylum seeker that ultimately committed suicide due to the ill treatment he received from the government. Kelly’s work was driven by anger, resentment and sadness about what had just happened. This launched Kelly into working across Europe in activism for migrants and refugees.
Yellow Feather of a Bulbul Bird- Project about Osman Mohammed
However, I am most interested in Kelly’s project titled Are You There which is an investigation into her Dad’s death with the help of psychic mediums. The reason i am so interested in this project is because my Final Major Project also has links to spiritualism and mediumship. It was really great showing this project to Kelly because it was interesting to get a perspective from someone who knows a lot about the subject matter. Overall Kelly’s feedback was very beneficial to me and encouraging. Kelly taught me that its important to have an element to the project that grounds the viewer in reality. This is because working with something that is intangible to the viewer makes it for that person to stay connected, they need something familiar that helps guide them through the project as a whole. This is why i’m going to be using images from my home that are familiar to all people to help be that grounding element. Furthermore, Kelly suggested I read The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker which elaborates on the idea that we as humans are living in perpetual fear of death that we subconsciously suppress.
Overall Kelly’s talk and feed back was so incredibly inspiring for me, I feel as though Kelly and I have very similar interests and outlooks in life and it felt really good to openly have a discussion about those opinions. Additionally, Kelly’s talk made me feel as though becoming a photographer was feasible and made me lose that element of imposter syndrome I had been experiencing.
