Project 1: Mise en Scene do Mercado
This is a visual journal of lens-based work from a practice-based PhD undertaken in the School of Architecture at the Royal College of Art by Dan Brackenbury.
The enquiry was situated within the context of three urban markets in Portugal, each experiencing different aspects of renewal: Mercado de Arroios in Lisbon, Mercado do Bolhão in Porto and Mercado dos Lavradores in Funchal. The purpose of the project was to survey and catalogue the uniqueness of these places before they altered forever. Extensive photographic explorations of the sites, involving numerous investigative photo-walks, took place over a period of three years.
The photographic material in Mise-en-Scène do Mercado attempts to capture occurrences of natural or incidental staging within each of the markets and which resulted in a sense of organic drama in the landscape. The photographs thus explore accidental incidents of theatrically and performance that emerged within the sites and which were subtly integral to their underlying character.
Gordon Cullen’s Townscape (1961) was initially used as a map of signifiers to guide this evaluative process and to help locate details which contributed towards the ‘character’ of these locations. Cullen proposes a set of visual precedents that contribute to the meaning of an urban landscape and arranged these features under the headings of Place, Content and Functional Tradition. The work is intended to expand-upon and compliment Cullen’s ‘casebook’ of urban details. These outcomes are rendered across three forms of time based media: a book, a portfolio of photographs and film, which was screened at the Transient Structures event at Athens Digital Arts Festival.
Project 2: Streetset
The digital application Streetset the 11th of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, Sustainable Cities, by inviting urban photographers and local citizens to gather collections of repeating details within urban landscapes, geotag these images, write captions to explain the local impact and then flag whether the details should be protected or not. By inviting urban citizens to undertake this process, we might be able tounderstand more about what people perceive as the aesthetic details that contribute to an area’s character and identity. The research was published in Brackenbury, D & Nisi, V (2020) Streetset: Towards a Photographic Framework for the Evocation of Urban Character, In: McLane, Y & Pable, J (eds.), AMPS Proceedings Series 18.1. Experiential Design – Rethinking relations between people, objects and environments. Florida State University, USA. pp.72–82, available at: https://amps-research.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Amps-Proceedings-Series-18.1.pdf
Project 3: Horizon 2020 funded PARTY Project
Two short films and a photo-essay publication documenting a series of co-design workshops in Windhoek and Cape Town, which sought to address issues related to youth unemployment in Namibia. Working primarily with San Communities, these workshops were part of the Horizon2020 funded PARTY Project (Participatory Tools for Human Development with the Youth). The works were exhibited at the Museum Arktikum in Finland and at the Design Garage in Cape Town at the end of the project.
Project 4: Under Glass
Made in collaboration with designer and sound artist Joe Gilmore as an immersive multi-screen video installation for Leeds Light Night, this is a strange metropolitan limbo that emerges on a rainy train journey through Amsterdam late at night.
Project 5: Teach for All
Created as part of a series of mini-documentaries for the global education network Teach for All, this short film tells the story of a young teacher who has recently started work as a new primary school in central Mumbai.