Blank Media Collective

Raggaphoto [Review]

Thursday 20th May 2010

Throughout April and May, the greenroom on Whitworth Street was home to the ‘Raggaphoto’ exhibition by duo Kyle Saxton and Marcus Ali curated by Blank Media Collective.

The exhibition staged works that would challenge that of Banksy, with this contemporary method of creating art through works of graffiti and the use of light. Imagine the back streets of Manchester, the dodgy areas around the canals crossed with the beauty of Salford Quays, all combined to create a stylish image with glowing graffiti; almost a photograph of sad sights at night and vandalism brought to life through neon light!

Sketch of Dog, Raggaphoto

I was astonished to find that the images created were not modified through technology and what you see is exactly what the camera saw. The work is about creating something beautifully trendy and pleasing to the eye from something that otherwise, would not be looked at twice.

On the whole, the exhibition was a display of what’s to come from these two budding talents and the true pleasure is that us locals can really relate to and identify our surroundings in the work, which creates a feeling of familiarity and involvement of the evolution of photography in our very own backyard.

Kyle and Marcus have been serious about this type of work shown through ‘Raggaphoto’ for about a year and half now, trying to move away from not just appealing to the urban underground scene but moving towards a more commercial crowd. There is no outside technology that allows the images to look as they do, it is all done themselves, “We set up a tripod with the camera set to anywhere between 5 second exposure, up to 30 seconds sometimes, from here we move a light source such as an LED torch in the desired shape, pattern and this is how our light graffiti is created”.

I Love Manchester, Raggaphoto

The work is raw; they twist the ideals of graffiti in new ways, traditional and modern elements are mixed together to form images that can only impress.

This review was written by Manchester-based independent reviewer Fionnuala Andrews

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