'"Pastoral interlude"…it's as if the black experience is only ever lived within an urban environment. I thought I liked the Lake District; where I wandered lonely as a black face in a sea of white. A visit to the countryside is always accompanied by a feeling of unease; dread…'
Photograph
1987 (photographed)
1987 (photographed)
On display at V&A South Kensington
Prints & Drawings Study Room, room WS| Artist/Maker | |
| Place Of Origin |
In the series ‘Pastoral Interludes’ Guyanese-born British photographer Ingrid Pollard explores issues of race, representation and the British landscape. The posing of her subjects in the Lake District, the epitome of authentic rural Britain, reveals the feelings of alienation and ‘otherness’ often experienced by black British people in rural areas. As a black British female artist, Pollard is one of those people whom the historian and writer C.L.R. James described as being in a position ‘to give a new vision, a deeper and stronger insight into both Western civilisation and the black people in it’.
object details
| Categories | |
| Object Type | |
| Additional Title | Pastoral Interlude (series title) |
| Materials and Techniques | Gelatin-silver print, coloured by hand |
| Brief Description | Photograph by Ingrid Pollard, from the series 'Pastoral Interlude', hand-coloured gelatin silver print, Lake District, 1987 |
| Physical Description | Hand-tinted photograph of a black woman, holding a camera, sitting on a wall before a wire fence in a field. |
| Dimensions |
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| Marks and Inscriptions | ''Pastoral interlude'/...it's as if the Black experience is only ever lived within an urban environment./ I thought I liked the Lake District; where I wandered lonely as a Black face in/ a sea of white. A visit to the countryside is always accompanied by a feeling/ of unease; dread...' (Printed label fixed beneath photograph.) |
| Gallery Label | "'and what part of Africa do you come from?' inquired the walker...'
The show I participated in entitled D MAX (1987) was a turning point for me. It was when I first started working on constructed pieces. Pastoral Interlude was made specially for that exhibition. The work is a comment on race, representation, and the British landscape. Pastoral Interlude seems to have a lot of resonance for many people. It began as a way of articulating some of the experiences I had in England. It is really a metaphor, a skeleton on which I explored ideas about place, and where we all fit in". |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Place Depicted | |
| Summary | In the series ‘Pastoral Interludes’ Guyanese-born British photographer Ingrid Pollard explores issues of race, representation and the British landscape. The posing of her subjects in the Lake District, the epitome of authentic rural Britain, reveals the feelings of alienation and ‘otherness’ often experienced by black British people in rural areas. As a black British female artist, Pollard is one of those people whom the historian and writer C.L.R. James described as being in a position ‘to give a new vision, a deeper and stronger insight into both Western civilisation and the black people in it’. |
| Associated Objects | |
| Bibliographic Reference | Victoria and Albert Museum Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings Accession Register for 1993 |
| Collection | |
| Accession Number | E.722-1993 |
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| record created | December 15, 2004 |
| Record URL |