Alexander Mourant

Alexander Mourant is a photographer and creative educator, based in London originally from Jersey. Published in many articles and exhibitions, both local and world wide. Within Jersey he has received grants for his work, developing history and local knowledge. One of his more noticeable projects in Jersey being his ‘On living stones and reaching’ as well as receiving grants in the UK and wining awards for art pedagogy. Alongside his photography he is an accomplished writer, contributing to the C4 journal, a platform in which photography is researched, explained and analysed and looking in depth at photos books.

Before being where he is now, he got a BA in photography and then also a MA in photography, developing his deeper understanding of research and love for the work. Although predominately based in London now and other UK areas in the past, he was originally from Jersey and is often the basis of a lot of his work. While he is a photographer he also is a lecturer of photography at Kingston University. His work is deeply researched, understand and explained before he actually completes the photo taking portion of his ‘study’ into a topic. He often combines his photography work with writing and performance, encouraging the viewer to take a deeper look at the project. Often his projects are collaborative, like the experimental sensory drawing classes he ran, creating a wider project, a mural designed and created by many based on one idea. Mourant keeps a running theme of nature and agriculture through out his work from carving trees to create unique sensory experiences telling natures tales to his ‘On living stones and reaching’ project.

‘On Living Stones and Reaching‘

‘create an earthwork for the sake of an image alone’

How to Plant an Image, 2020
Super 8 film, colour, silent
For projection, digitised HD
Duration: 8 minutes, 9 seconds

Mourant’s work style is autobiographical, documenting often well researched and thought out things. Hinting at deep connections to his work, the effort put into the understanding and research of his topic to then document it correctly and leave the correct expression on the viewer. Often known for his expanded research, he regularly uses methods created in the land art movement. Mourant himself states he wants the work to be a reflection of ‘temporality, spatiality and reflexivity’ a new way of understanding the world around us, closely linked to his common agriculture themes.

This project is no different, ‘On living stones and reaching’ based around Jersey agriculture and his own family history he delves deep into the Jersey Royal farming process. The presentation of the project is unusual, being read first look second. However, this is realistic to Mourant’s style, focusing on how to best describe the scene to the viewer , adding history, context and explanation before presenting the photos. The project compares the similarities of the land and photography. Going back to Jersey after coming across the idea when writing about Land art during his BA, Mourant felt the representation of ‘souvenir’ of the site or event’ was wildly inaccurate and enraging. He responded with his project, with deep exploration, research and understanding to each section, enhancing the viewers experience, forcing them to understand and not glance over it. This sparked his idea for this project as he wanted to respond to his own autobiography, looking at his family history and the history with the land. Drawing similarities between photography and the land, plants, agriculture. In the same way photography needs light, time and minerals so does the land. It was not a short project, in fact Mourant wanted to extended the project and take his time, pushing himself further into the project and its research. The project was created during covid 19, when Mourant was forced to come back to Jersey and live a slower pace of life, examining each detail. During the creation of this project he kept a diary, notes on the season, the project anything he felt could add depth to his work and the viewers understanding of it.

Further inspired by Henry Fox Talbot’s work of early ‘photographic drawings’ said to have inspired Anna Atkin’s cyanotypes of ferns and algae. Adding a deeper link the Mourant’s connection of nature and photography as many said early photographic drawings were ‘born in the garden’ due to the subject matter and the drawings needing light and water. Talbot also kept a photography journal documenting tips and experiments, what worked, what he thought, wat he wanted to change. Mourant holds a similar attitude to Talbot’s understanding of nature and that a camera is not a tool for documenting the world but a ‘agential recipient of nature’s marvels.’ Although, Mourant was a labourer at the time, he chose not to reflect himself in that way in the project, instead pulling out the artist side of him. The project took Mourant back to his roots, a small acre field in Trinity, steeped in family history, while getting him to explore the older photography techniques, ‘returning photography to the garden it came from’.

Photo Analysis

I picked this photo as it is a great overall representation for the project. Highlighting the photographer, (self portrait) the environment and the bluntness of the project. Mourant himself is framed in the centre, potato creates scattered to his left showing the rows left to plant, his gloves on the floor and headphones hanging on his shirt. All give the impression he has simply stopped in the middle of a working day to take this photo, which is true, highlighting the reality of the project and its unfiltered approach. The photo itself hasn’t been edited much, potentially some simple colour adjustments but nothing huge as that would distract from the point of the project, to take ‘photography back to the garden’. It is a simple photo but there is something profound about the way Mourant is starting into the camera, addressing the viewers, relaxed in his environment shown by the one hand in his pocket. It summarise the project, showing the field it was shot in, the photographer, the reality that is agriculture. Within my own project I would like to include similar photos, ones that show the bare reality, bringing it back to the land that sustains us and the people that look after it. Mourant’s approach is strong, using straight angles, forward photos getting the point across but in a way that shows the amount of research that has gone into it.