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Leeds artist's disaster model displays
Leeds artist Joe Mawson has come up with a way of working that puts a new focus on some of the darkest days in the UK's recent history.
Joe, 25, uses customised toy models to craft detailed re-creations of the aftermath of incidents like the Selby rail crash and the Lockerbie air disaster.
He then photographs the small-scale scenes before pressing computer technology into action to saturate his digital images with ultra-vivid colour.
The finished pictures, says Joe, pull off the neat trick of looking fake AND true-to-life at the same time.
And that, he believes, draws attention to "society's need to analyse and find meaning" in momentous events such as Selby and Lockerbie.
Joe, of Headingley, said: "I'm not trying to recreate the actual disasters themselves.
"What I'm really aiming for is a recreation of the media photos and images that define events like these in the public consciousness.
What do you think about this? Is it tasteful to depict disasters as art? Email us with your views.
"I want to explore how photography is used and how it feeds into people's recollections."
Joe, based at Patrick Studios in Burmantofts, says his art does not seek to exploit human tragedy.
He points out that his "restagings" include only vehicles and landscapes, not representations of victims.
Each scene is around three or four feet square and takes about a fortnight to put together.
Joe is one of four artists whose work will soon be showcased in a new photographic exhibition at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery in the University of Leeds's Parkinson Building.
The other three are Ignaz Cassar, Hondartza Fraga and Andrew Warstat, all based in Yorkshire.
Entrance is free to the National Lottery-backed exhibition, entitled The Object of Photography and running from April 7 to June 19.
Ten people died when two trains collided at Great Heck, near Selby, in 2001. A total of 270 people lost their lives when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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