

ADAM KOSSOFF
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ARTIFICIAL
SINCE THEN
BLANK SPACES
FILMS
Artificial
Photography and artificial (plastic or paper) flowers commonly bear a representational meeting point, an iconic relationship to the real. Their claim on 'authenticity' quickly breaks down on close inspection. Artificial flowers are used to replace the real thing, photographs too, create memories that are arguably more synthetic than real. It is also the case that artificial flowers, serve to intensify (through colouring and longevity) the actuality of authentic flowers, while photographs serve to intensify the representation of the real (and more traditionally analogue photographs).
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SINCE THEN
Wanstead Park, in East London, was designed and built in the 17th Century by Joshua Childs who made his fortune in two slave owning companies; the East India Company and the Royal African Company. The series is inspired by the words of the poet Édouard Glissant and the music of Jacques Coursil. Jacques Coursil, the great jazz improviser, used Glissant's poetry on his album Clameurs.
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Blank Page
The blank page holds something back. It refuses to deliver a presence that the photograph normally promises. Then again, a blank page is never empty, it just doesn't give it itself up to scrutiny easily. But what is it doing there in the first place?
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SOME FILMS
Under The Chestnut Trees (2025) A beautiful park and slavery.
Dusk in Portbou (2024) Walter Benjamin's suicide.
Through the Bloody Mists of Time (2024, trailer) Walter Benjamin meets Humphrey Jennings in Paris during the 1937 Paris Exposition.
Downstream (2022) The slow poetry of the Thames.
. In The Loop of History (2020) Israel's aggrandising mythological.
The Colour of Memory (2020) Kossoff bakeries and the colours of nostalgia and memory.
The Anarchist Rabbi (2015) Rudolf Rocker and London's East End anarchism.
Animal Architecture (2014) Dudley Zoo, narrated by Lenny Henry.
Made in Wolverhampton Pt 1 (2011, Pt 1) Documentary essay on urban city.
Made in Wolverhampton (2011, Pt 2)
Moscow Diary (2010 ) Following in the footsteps of Walter Benjamin.









