Untitled, from the Series 'Drip By Drip, We Are Fed With Concrete'
Anna Sellen30 x 40 cm | 11 x 15 in
Subject: People
Tags: War, Black And White, Portrait, Soldier
Original photographic print in archival pigment on hahnemühle photorag fine art paper.
In ‘Drip by drip, we are fed with concrete,’ Anna Sellen explores the psychological effect of censorship and silencing on the lives and the identities of people. In this work she draws on her family’s lived experiences in the Soviet Union between 1952 and 1986. Their first-hand narrative accounts unfold through the photographs, poems, sound and diaries, revealing a distinct interpretation of the defining geo-political events of the Cold War era.
To create this series, the artist burned, defaced and buried in concrete the photos of her family, acting out their agony of constantly living in a state immersed in fear and secrecy. She used concrete and the Cold War bunker as metaphors for the impact of silencing on people. This work is a visually expressive reminder of what we can learn from history, and the consequences of what can happen if we do not.
This work attracted acclaim and recognition, including Open Walls Arles Single Image Winner 2023 (British Journal of Photography / 1854 Media); “sensitivity and imagination… stand out experimental use of archive images” RBSA Photography prize 2023.
Culture Photo Editor at TIME Magazine Whitney Matewe, who chosen Sellen’s work for 2022 Daylight Photo Award Juror’s picks, commented, “Sellen's work is striking and immersive — featuring the physical bunker as a prominent presence alongside vernacular family archives makes for an unforgettable pairing. I found myself thinking about the images long after viewing the project. And her brilliant use of texture and lighting makes for such a creative essay where each image is so uniquely its own visual experience; layered rich and complex, and yet the body of work all feels cohesive.”
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Anna Sellen
Notable Achievements 2023
Crossing the borders of photography, video, sound, and the written word to explore her family's history of migration, movement and their experience of living in the Soviet Union, Anna Sellen's works are eerie repositories of generational fear, silencing and secrecy. Combining original family photographs, diaries and testimony with archival research, images that should contain familiar likenesses are instead distorted, rendered in the negative, with faces removed or replaced. Military imagery and memorabilia is everywhere - in the radio-like device embedded disquietingly in the face of one figure, and in the clocks, and eerily lit cabinet of another work, and the stark, exposed interiors the works are placed in. The imagery of the Soviet Union is so familiar it has become almost trite, but Anna's work demands that we look again, and see past the cliched stock images and abstract associations to recognise the human lives that lie behind it.
A powerful testament to the psychological effects of censor, secrecy and suspicion, these works can be opened up beyond their original subjects to ask both about the long- term effects of a repressive state apparatus, and the haunting unknowability of those closest to us.
Dan Robinson, Programme Leader Photography, Open College of the Arts:
'Anna Sellen's 'Drip by drip, we are fed with concrete' absolutely stunned the Open College of the Arts (OCA) selection panel with its outstanding quality and achievement, as a compelling and innovative physical, online and virtual reality exhibition project — sensitively representing archives, personal histories and geo-politics of the Cold War era.
OCA's distance/online model often sees ambitious final year projects benefit from a 'slow burn' approach to development, collaboration and external engagement that part-time study can enable, but Anna’s final project was of really stand out exceptional quality. Anna has also attracted wide acclaim and recognition: Open Walls Arles selection 2023 (British Journal of Photography / 1854 Media); “sensitivity and imagination… stand out experimental use of archive images” RBSA Photography prize 2023, “striking and immersive” Daylight Photo Awards 2022; Royal Photographic Society international exhibition 2022, Photoworks UK 2022, Shutter Hub Portfolio award 2021).
We’re absolutely thrilled for Anna as a deserving nominee for the New Blood Art Emerging Art Prize, and she is definitely one to watch!'
