Sian Stammers

As part of a wider body of research, photographer Sian Stammers created one-day workshop in September 2006. In this event, working together with the photographer, participants- mainly students from South Notts sixth form college, documented the area surrounding Clifton Grove throughout the day. The group were encouraged to photograph the landscape, nature, changes in the weather over different time periods and observe the general activity along the route. This was the first time many of the participants had used a SLR or medium format camera. With the help of the artist the group were encouraged to photograph the landscape, nature, changes in the weather over periods, and the general activity along the route. 

This workshop was free and the group's work was shown as a projected slideshow at a location along the river for the Hinterland launch in October.

Comments from participants

 It’s been good being outside, enjoying the sun and being around nature. I have learnt a few new skills with a camera too.

I liked being outdoors for a change and am looking forward to seeing the work projected huge! This was the first time I used a proper camera.

In 2007, at Hinterland's HQ, Sian Stammers presented new photographs of the landscape found beside the riverside path, which winds from Clifton Bridge to Clifton Grove in Nottingham.  This ragged wasteland, to the artist, represents a ‘falling away’ from the busy city to a brown-field space overtaken by nature and a different pace of life. Stammers describes this journey as a ‘decent from city time’, to a place not usually sought out for its own sake by visitors. For the Big Day Out at Nottingham Castle, Hinterland screened Stammers’ new Super8 film inspired by a passage in D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Sons and Lovers’. The newly commissioned film is inspired by a climactic part of the book, where the main characters take a walk from the Nottingham City Centre to Clifton Grove. Stammers explores how the topography of landscape in the novel sits alongside landscape as factual place.