5 plus 5 is a collaboration with GRAIN, the Library of Birmingham and the IED MADRID, and will be shown in Madrid and Birmingham during 2014/15. The exhibition showcases five photographers who are residents in the British Midlands area and five international artists who participate in the European Master of Fine Art Photography program in Madrid.

The selected artists are

David Shepherd, Dean O’Brien, Lauren Spencer, Nicola Onions and Oscar Parasiego, all based on the side based in the UK, and Angela Losa, Anna Fawcus, Eoin Moylan, Inge Trienekens, and Juan Pablo Fassi, on the other in Madrid.

The projects presented here orbit around themes such as memory, identity, space, the human condition and so forth, in other words, eternal subjects in the field of photographic creation. Yet, they surprise us with a highly contemporary language, representative for a new generation of globally connected artists that use the camera as one of many technological tools for image creation.

Highlights of the exhibition include:

David Shepherd´s series Discarded, which merges photography with both archaeology and performance: The series depicts a selection of metallic objects that were recovered, using a length of rope and a powerful magnet, from a stretch of canal in the Black Country; a name given to a vast area of the West Midlands, which was said to be dense with thick smog throughout the Industrial Revolution. By presenting and photographing them in such a manner, Shepherd hopes to provoke the viewer into questioning the origins of each object; their former uses and how it was they came to be discarded.

Inge Trienekens’ project Zoological, which tries to explore the contrast between reality and its (re-)construction; the illusion of nature, in a human-shaped environment. Looking for artificial-natural constructions, she discovered that fake environments are ironically starting to integrate into reality over time. The artificial habitats for the animals are nothing more than mirrors of the human soul, because they respond to our – not their – tastes and pleasures.

Angela Losa’s 1939-2012, based on a reinterpretation of a private collection of newspapers, books, supplements, brochures, prints and different files, found in the flat where she currently lives: the house of her grand aunt in Madrid. These diptychs, collages and sketches aim to give a fresh look on the popular and propagandistic imagery of Spanish fascism and its heritage.

5 plus 5 is a project created by Nicola Shipley and Pete James and curated by Moritz Neumüller. It will be shown at IED Madrid’s exhibition space at Calle Larra 14, in the city centre of the Spanish capital, from October 28 to November 14, 2014, and will then travel to Birmingham, where it will be exhibited at The Photographers’ Wall,  Library of Birmingham, in March-April of 2015