Map6 Collective are delighted to announce that Brighton based photographer Richard Chivers has joined us. We look forward to joining our energies and skills, and sharing ideas together. Richard will be joining us on our new collaborative project in Milton Keynes for 2017.
So we welcome Richard Chivers on board Map6 I know were all looking forward to working with you!
Can we start with you telling us a bit about yourself and how you got started in photography?
One of my earliest memories as a child is venturing into the loft of our house to check out my dads black and white darkroom that he had up there. My dad is a keen photographer and i think that planted the seed at an early age. I always wanted to be a TV Cameraman when i was at school, being able to film football matches etc. It wasn’t until i went travelling in my late 20s that i decided photography was something that i really enjoyed and might be good at. So in 2003 i decided join the Editorial Photography course in Brighton and Graduated in 2006.
Tell us about your most significant projects/moments in photography and your influences?
My first significant project evolved from a piece of work that i did at University and was called 'Textures of Time’. It was significant as i managed to get Arts Council funding to make and exhibit the project in a few different places and made a small publication in the form of a ‘Mapozine’. I was also one of the founders of a photography collective called Human Endeavour, and we were involved with several different exhibitions showcasing different work, the most significant piece of work that we produced was a collaborative project called Degeneration that was exhibited at the Brighton Photo Fringe, Format International photo festival and various other places.
I really enjoy all sorts of photography, but i guess photographers that i often return to are landscape photographers such as John Davies and Jem Southam, Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld, artists like Robert Smithson and authors like JG Ballard. I earn a living from photographing Architecture and i think that has had some influence on my personal work, I enjoy quite graphical work such as Architectural photographer Helen Binet and i have recently been getting into the work of swedish photographer Gerry Johansson. The list could go on and on!
What first drew you to Map6?
I ve followed the work of MAP6 through your different exhibitions and seen some of them at the Brighton Photo Fringe, and really enjoyed the work, the ideas and projects that were produced were interesting and look like a lot of fun. I enjoy working in a collective as it adds something different to the way you work and is good to be able to bounce ideas around. MAP6 also have some diverse practitioners so it should be interesting to see how the work can be pulled together as one project.
Whats coming up next for you?
My next main focus will be the project with MAP6 in Milton Keynes, but i have also been slowly making a few different other projects that i would like to really get towards finishing this year, one of them is called OFF-GRID, documenting different Gasometers in Britain before they disappear and the other is called ‘Views from the Grid’ that looks at Electricity Pylons.