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Studies in Gravitation is a series of photographs taken at my family’s disused German farm house in an attempt to reconnect with my ancestors and the lost traditions of tending the family land. The images pick up ideas of place and deterioration; Untouched yield is collected and balanced cautiously, while agricultural tools that were passed through all generations hands are reconfigured to abstract sculptural objects. Just like those tools once used to slice, plow and grind through firm soil this work unearths abandoned objects and brings buried memories to the surface of the image.

'For me, the highlight of Ambit 2019 is the pairing at Street Level Photoworks of Edyta Majewska’s politically urgent installation with a series of symbolically charged black and white photographs by Katy Hundertmark (Studies in Gravitation, 2018). After working in sculpture and performance, this very recent project constitutes a double return for Hundertmark: not only to photography but also to a site of personal significance – an abandoned farm in Germany owned by her ancestors. The photographs enact multiple ritualistic excavations: of crabapples, of memories, of pain. The artist’s face is never visible; instead we see hands and tools, white forearms in the dark earth. Antiquated tools are arranged into sculptural forms. Seated self-portraits show the artist holding a chunk of local slate or an intestine-like tree root crown as a symbol of digestion, both literal and metaphorical. A white-shrouded figure lies in a ploughed field.' Tom Jeffrey wrote in his review for Photomonitor UK.

'These photographs are a deeply personal ode to the land of her ancestry and a previous way of life, offering a momentary repose to the overwhelming automation and instant-gratification of modern life.' John Farrell wrote in his review for The Scottish Society for the History of Photography.

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Install documentation for AMBIT: Photographies from Scotland at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow 2019

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