Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell is a Scottish / British who was born in Glasgow and her work features her family and other inequality here in the UK.  Margaret Mitchell two main projects is Family (1994) and her later project in the place (2017).  Her work shows the problem with poverty in the UK and how families need to stick together to get through, her work shows that the government needs to do more work in order to stop people living in run-down areas in the UK. In the place, the book was a scary challenge as she wanted to revisit it but she was unsure what the challenges for her family would be after the death of her sister 2008. She knew her sister children faced challenges with them being emotionally, economically and personally. She felt after her sister’s death the bond breaking and she hoped that doing this project would let her back in their lives and make the family bond strong.

'In This Place' traces the lives of my late sister’s family and offers a broader commentary on the environment, opportunity and social inequality. 

Chick from the series Family, 1994 © Margaret Mitchell
Steven from the series Family, 1994 © Margaret Mitchell

Margret believes that family lives are in a certain controlled location and in the book ‘‘family’’ She used mothers, sisters with a lived with certain style background from objects from children’s daily stories. She was also inspired as she fed, clothed, washed and give support to let children live in their own world. These shots she has shown are part of the children’s understanding and shows the power of what they live like. The two books showing the following children lives show a different the story than we are used to listening to. The series of the family follow her sisters’ children Steven, Kellie and Chick, who she has close connections with. She wanted to document the lives from the involvement and experiences from the children as life had been contained, linked and inter-dependent.

Leah, Chick’s daughter, in the Backcourt 2016. At age ten, Leah had lived in over ten different places. With grandparents, another family, homeless accommodation
Steven close by both his and his youngest sister’s flats 2017. Steven is the eldest of the original three siblings. He took me for a walk, said he knew a nice place, just up the road. We walked then stopped in an area of open land. I realised quite suddenly this was where his mum - my sister - had lived before she died in 2008. Steven had lived there with his mum. ‘Nothing left here’ he said; we took a few photos and walked on

Margret lived in Raploch, Stirling, Scotland, which is one of the highest places in Scotland and is high on the Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) and the reputation is not normally seen in through the nicest ways. Margaret saw the location as not being important as it was about children and childhood.

Leah, Chick’s daughter 2017. Chick mourns her losses, a mother for herself and the grandmother Leah can’t really remember. “We would all be together all the time if Mum was still here, me and Leah and Kellie and the kids.”Liam, Kellie’s son 2017. “I’m going to get a really good job, I will be very successful at my job and I’ll have a girlfriend and a few kids and I’ll take care of them and we’ll have a good life.

The latest book highlights some cultural problems with most people and is what choices do we have in life where some of the predetermined or has been made for us. The book uses the workplaces to show some of the mental and physical problems we put ourselves in. this could be with drugs, politics or it could family issues she uses this book to explore her great-nieces and nephews to see how they have used their choices. As this book focuses on what her nieces and nephews would have gone through with the loss of her sister. From looking at it from my angle I understand how hard at times people can take it this shows some of the emotional aspects from a viewer with the loss of family members.

 Kellie from the series Family
Kyla, Kellie’s daughter 2017. Kellie’s girls tell of how they get ‘slagged off’ at school for living in a flat. In this town, most people live in houses with a front and back door and a garden.

The problem with this area of town is the area poor and almost slum-like condition. The images show a personal message of her family with the loss of loved ones, new love and survival in a socioeconomic context. This will be the death of her sister but everyone can relate from having a perfect life and then some you are close to dying and your life can get of control. Even with the death of her sister and loss of parents and no good opportunities of earning a decent living, the family is almost like glue as they have not really moved from the town and they are in the same area similar lets and but they keep the independence going since they were children. Most families will go through loss and will stick together this what I am so fascinated that she can come back 20 years later to the same place and they have not moved.

Leah in front of her flats 2016. “Hopefully, I will stay here forever, in this area, this place”
All three siblings and their children still live in flats yet to be touched by regeneration.
A circular bus runs through the town, from one area of economic deprivation to another. Within this social landscape, all that has changed for the children from 1994 is moved from one area scoring high in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation to another. This is a simple bus ride across town.

Some people believe that life just stays the same nothing happens when living the conical housing estates in central Scotland. As the world changes the families shown the series ‘In the Place’ stay in the same place. In the landscape and the movement has occurred to another area that is still too high with deprivation, which is a bus ride across the town. Some towns will always have a close effect and people at times will not want to leave their own they have grown up.

Add caption Chick and her daughter, Leah 2016. Chick always wanted a little girl. After she got pregnant at 16 and had Leah she knew she didn’t want, or need, any more children. She had her daughter.  Chick and Leah got a necklace out of Argos. One half says ‘I Love You’; the other half says ‘To The Moon and Back’. They separated the necklace and each wear half.Kyle, Steven’s son 2016. Kyle was born at 28 weeks, weighing less than 2 pounds a born fighter, always.

Problem with politics and not helping the situation

In areas like Raploch, Stirling these are small towns and cities and have been ignored in favour of big towns and cites was there are more people and more interest. Over the 20 years gap, there was not really any positive development. The city might be huge but as with London, they neglect the small people, as they know it will not have an effect on this. Most people in this area rely on benefits at times, this has been ignored in the area by the main parties and in the UK parliament is currently controlled by the Conservative government: in the 1st election since the area was formed was in 1983 with Michael Bruce Forsyth, Conservative – he was the MP when ‘family (1994)’ was created, while in 1997 Dame Anne McGuire, Labour became MP, then afterwards it became in 2015 Steven Paterson SNP, he was in power when ‘in this place’ was done finally, in 2017 Stephen Kerr of Conservative is the MP. In the 2019 General Election, it went back to the SNP While with the Holyrood since the creation in 1999 of the consistency of Stirling it has been held by Labour of the SNP only. 1999 & 2003 was Sylvia Jackson for the Labour Party, after 2007 it changed to the SNP: 2007, 2011 and 2016 are Bruce Crawford for the Scottish National Party. The voting patterns reflect the problems of wealth and poverty and this is why the Conservatives have not held it in Holyrood. 

(Wiki, 2019) (WIki, 2019)

From the series Family (1994) 

The message from the captions

The messages from the captions are done to describe what the shot is about in the place. The captions shown provide relevant information to the viewer at home to understand what the images are going to be about. The captions show some of the feelings of what her nieces and nephew children are going through and give the context to the viewer. It is important to understand that in Family (1994) the are no captions explaining about the models in some cases just there names

Leah 2016  Chick’s advice to Leah: ‘After school, get a job, a decent job, have some partying time, a wee place to stay, a wee car, meet the man of your dreams, plenty of money coming in, settle down (if serious), get a place together, everything all nice in the house...then have a family’ Kyla in her auntie Chick’s house 2016. The original three children remain close, in both emotional and physical distance. Their children live in and out of each other’s homes.

Unlike her first series of her family she has changed the mood and the tone of her shots which shows them growing up in candid and sombre shots. Unlike in Family (1994), she has chosen to focus on the outside of the flats because the family was:

 ‘Less about the place, but more about the children and their interior world’

A huge challenge was she had to represent this truthfully in her shots to use of the crucial elements of body language and story line in Documentary and Contemporary Portrait Photography, which makes the viewer understand the connections with the location. Both of the projects include the personal story of her nieces and nephew while in the latest book their children as this show family, love, loss, love and survival and exploring some questions in life and why at times it looks like they are having a train of bad luck. The location runs on a circular bus route from where the lived as a child to where the currently live they both have huge deprivation caused by housing income, health and opportunities.

I want the viewers to maybe ask themselves a question about how society operates, how choice is related to opportunity and environment. To see that lives are complex, as are wants and needs, and that sometimes people choose what they do because actually, not much has been offered in the first place.”

I believe the way that Margaret has shown the models from inside and outside it highlights the problems with areas having a huge deprivation problem. She does make her work look all-political and blame the government for doing nothing to help them out but it shows the social problems. These areas here are the ones who will do loads of protest votes to make them heard as they are ignored.

Chick and her sister Kellie From the series Family (1994).
Andrea, mother of Steven, Kellie and Chick. From the series Family (1994)
Leah From Family (1994)

How does this fit with the Contemporary and Documentary Portrait Photography

Margaret’s work is a perfect example to explore Documentary and Contemporary Portrait Photography, because she has shown, is what Morden day life is going on. Her work shows the negative power of deprivation and what the problems can come from poverty. I like how she documents and tells of a story of her family and the social and finical problems that they suffer from. With her documentary that shows her family getting together, it is interesting that with the 20-year gap that nothing has changed and that her family are together. This series works in this style because they are related and have a good relationship, in the future, I want to something similar in the future. I like that she shows the truth and she does not lie in her work she is a silent campaigner for the better shots. In the future, I will use her style to build a document series based on peoples home lives.

The series Family 1994

References Rewritten in my own words

(Mitchell, 2017). (Mitchell, 2017), (Family, 1994), (Fulleylove, 2017)

Bibliography

Family, M. M. -., 1994. Family. [Online]
Available at: http://margaretmitchell.co.uk/projects/family/
[Accessed 30 5 2018].

Fulleylove, R., 2017. Margaret Mitchell re-shoots her family over 20 years since she last photographed them. [Online]
Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/margaret-mitchell-family-in-this-place-photography-110717
[Accessed 30 5 2018].

Mitchell, M., 2017. AWARDS: In This Place. [Online]
Available at: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/margaret-mitchell-in-this-place
[Accessed 30 5 2018].

Mitchell, M., 2017. In This Place. [Online]
Available at: http://margaretmitchell.co.uk/projects/in-this-place/
[Accessed 16 12 2019].

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