James Goodchild
Mamiaith
An inquiry into why I make photographs led me to look into my own heritage, background, and most importantly language. Mamiaith (Welsh for mother-tongue) is a series of 145 images taken in Wales, my birthplace, which once displayed presents its own code or language a language of imagery rather than words. Initially hard to decipher it is only when the viewer draws closer to the images that they reveal themselves. Like black ink for a poet the silver crystals reaction to light presents my voice, my language.
To make a photograph I need to stop looking to invoke myself in that time and space to connect to a feeling, and when this happens it means I have made that connection. Silence and whispers are far more ardent than noise and shouting, and it’s this intensity which I am trying to create through my images portraying photographs of ornamental rather than persuasive speech, creating an object that can be cherished and showing a moment that initially might not seem to have any importance but ultimately does.