Browse Anna Sellen’s OCA Photography graduate case study padlet. 

Add a short note to your learning log with one or two points that may have relevance to your own practice and project development.

I am aware of Anna Sellen’s work and have exchanged emails with her about her gallery space presented in a virtual underground bunker. I find her work very impressive and all the more so when you glimpse what went behind the production of her Major Project as shown on the OCA Padlet.

I was fascinating to watch the project develop from first steps of discovering a cold war bunker then experimenting with what to do with this bunker as a physical space but also including the emotion and the mood of that place. The reasoning behind her choice of the bunnker expressed as “a concrete survival machine” Then placing her family inside the bunker or photographing the interior as is or just being in that space for reasons of experiencing the texture and mood. I was interested in her experimentation with sound and digital video and text and her use of words and experimentation with visual language. This post for me has great resonance and is something for me to take away and to think about for my own work. Sellen’s experimentation with burning, family archive, text, layering, scratching, concrete, poetry and installations show the depth of Sellen’s work and her interests. I have done a lot of experimentation too but have not expressed my efforts in any way close to how Sellen has. Again, much for me to take away and think about. I think what is interesting from this case study is to watch Sellen’s work expand from where it began on OCA to a wider base in the outside World.

I was struck my a quotation from Sellen’s padlet, “I wouldn’t necessarily say that exhibiting work is important, however, the steps leading to exhibiting work – including but not limited to editing, sizing, printing, editioning, pricing, transporting, framing, hanging – are all important for your professional practice.” (Michael Dooney, 2021) as this gives resons for the benefits of going through a process which ends with an exhibition or a book. How the final major project is presented is not an end in itself but gives the student the opportunity to add skills to their résumé which will be used in the future after our time with the OCA comes to an end.