TOPIC / Photography
Link: http://www.milim.com/news.php?id=185
Millennium contributor Chris Harrison's new book I Belong Jarrow is to be published this September by Schilt Publishing.
I have forgotten the language of my fathers and have not yet learned the language of my children.
To view a gallery of selected book spreads please clickhere
I was born and brought up in Jarrow, a tough industrial town on the south bank of the river Tyne. It’s where I call home.
I have lived abroad for more years than I care to admit. My Mother and Father are getting old and moving out of Jarrow, cutting me adrift with no way back. Finally, I have been forced to think about who I am and where I belong.
I never wanted to leave Jarrow. I always imagined that one day I would make it my home. I realise now that I can never return. Somehow I traded knowledge of the outside world for some vital piece of me. With this realisation, I have returned home in order to try to establish how much of where I am from determines who I am, and to begin to understand why I can´t seem to let go.
What makes Jarrow so special? It may have a rich history stretching back to pre-Roman times but this isn’t what makes it special to me. Rather, its relevance seems too be something essentially intangible. Is Jarrow a place that exists more in my imagination than in reality? Perhaps its essence is based on a collection of handed down stories rather than facts? Sadly, the places connected to these stories are disappearing fast and I feel the need to preserve them somehow, if only so that I can share them with my children.
Hopefully, by photographing the places I know intimately I can show something we all instinctively recognize; that, as L.P. Hartley said so eloquently "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there".
Text by Chris Harrison
Chris Harrison has been a photographer for over 20 years. He was born in Jarrow in 1967 and took an MA in photography at the Royal College of Art. His work has been shown in venues around the world including the Tate Britain and Les Rencontres D'Arles. He currently lives with his family in Oslo in a little yellow house by the forest.
The book is out in September and can be bought from http://www.schiltpublishing.com/
Design: Maria Sætre,
Commando Group, Oslo
ISBN 978 90 5330 780 9
Format: 21 x 27 cm (landscape)
Hardbound
92 pages with approx. 65 photos
in full colour
World Rights
September 2012
£27.50 | $45 | €35
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