MANCHESTER GIRLS : CCTV IN OPERATION BY DEAN DAVIES & VICKY OLSCHAK
Manchester Girls is a collaboration between image-makers Dean Davies and Vicky Olschak, part reality, part fiction, very much an homage to the strong women that informed Dean and Vicky’s adolescence.
Dean Davies is an award-winning image-maker from North West England. Growing up in Merseyside, Dean’s upbringing has unmistakably influenced his work and inspired him to focus his lens on communities close to home in the North West.
‘I’ve seen a lot of male-fronted photography within this region, so I wanted to capture something that better reflected my experiences of growing up here. This is a love letter to Manchester and the women I grew up around, and who continue to inform and inspire me.’
The series and its publication draw upon some of the less documented female perspectives within Manchester’s rarely-covered areas, embodying the youthful mischief and everyday mundanity of life in Manchester’s suburban sprawl.
Vicky Olschak is a fashion stylist, born and raised in Manchester. ‘As a Manchester girl myself, I’m constantly being inspired by the city and its people. We approached this project as a celebration of women and Northern style, informed by growing up in Manchester, fashion, friendship and memories.’
TRIP sprang to lie as a magazine in 2013, with Dean Davies very much as proud father, born from a desire to provide opportunity and exposure for image-makers across multiple platforms and medias.
‘As a recent graduate, I realised how few opportunities there were for young people in the creative industries. I created TRIP as a not-for-profit platform for creatives to contribute to and have their work seen by a supportive community, irrespective of their social media followings or who they’d worked for previously.’
With a focus on people and place, in five years TRIP gained a loyal readership and became known for its honest image output and representation of the underrepresented, featuring over eight hundred image-makers from across the world through a website, ive magazines and three zines, which were entirely funded by Dean and given away for free. Whew.
‘As a publisher and Community Interest Company, TRIP is dedicated to showcasing unconventional stories that may otherwise be overlooked. We aim to give a platform to the unseen and a microphone to the ignored. Expression is a right and should not be confined to those that can afford to work for free, which is why we strive to support a diverse range of creatives in their work, commissioning inspiring projects and creators.’
‘As TRIP C.I.C. were’ not interested in profiting from the activities of the organization and will re-invest all income back in to consecutive publishing projects, commissioning exciting projects and creatives to visualise them, disrupting the narratives of image-making and publishing today and providing opportunities for creators and story-tellers.’
‘We see Manchester Girls as the catalyst for this… an example of our manifesto and a totem for meaningful, diverse, community-focused publishing.’
‘The photographs I create are informed by memories of my adolescence and experiences of growing up in the North West. There are recurring symbols within my photography of suburban streets, groups of people and of British style trends of my adolescence. It’s my way of telling my story through my work and paying homage to the people and places that informed it. It’s autobiographical, but it’s not reality, because the photographs pay homage to the past, rather than document it.’
‘My photography constantly takes me back up North, and, in particular, the North West. I jump at any opportunity to shine a spotlight on the area and its residents. I’m drawn to people, character and style. As a photographer, I don’t give my subjects much direction. I aim to capture genuine moments of intimacy and interaction, how people engage with their immediate environments.’
Yum.
P.P Hartnett
