MARYON PARK

Maryon Park is the place Michelangelo Antonioni chose, in 1966, to shoot the scenes that would become cult images from his film “Blow Up”, and deservedly so.
The park is located in Charlton, southeast of London, a place that’s hardly changed since Antonioni shot there. I first went there to shoot a series of photos on March 7 and 8, 2007. I returned again on March 7, 2014. I called the series “Maryon Park”. I used a medium format, six by seven inch color negative. I wanted the light of winter crossing into spring.
The series began with my memories of the film, and was a way to repeat it myself. So I went to the location where Antonioni filmed his famous scenes, scenes that inhabit me as well, and then went back again seven years later. The series I shot essentially consisted of apprehending the sensation and phenomenon of déjà-vu. His scenes, today, have become like clichés, so much have they gotten into time’s memory, individually and collectively. Shortly after my return from first trip to Maryon Park, I read something Antonioni said:

“We know that under the revealed image there is another one more faithful to reality, and under that reality is yet another reality, and again another, to the point where any absolute reality remains a mystery that no one can ever see”.

Films can enrich the imagination, and cinema often inspires my work as a photographer, often to the point that I might say that I understand reality better through cinema. There are filmmakers who create cinematic experiences that seem to equal to real life. The films of Antonioni fully cover this experience.

GB March 2017