Growing Up in the New Age

Book excerpt: Drawing on a range of approaches and media, including photography, digital imaging, film and video, writing, collecting, re-using archival materials, and online venues, Growing Up in the New Agesets out to reconsider the social utopias of the 1960s and early 1970s and discuss what we might learn from them today. Marjolaine Ryley is an artist who has exhibited and published her work nationally and internationally including exhibitions at Wolverhampton Art Gallery; Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow; Impressions Gallery, Bradford; and The Palacio des Artes, Porto. Her work is held in several major collections including The Victoria and Albert Museum, London and the Serralves Museum, Porto. Much of her work has explored family photography including her book Villa Mona - A Proper Kind of House (Trace Editions 2006),and Field Study 7 - Residence Astral (PARC 2008) which was published to coincide with the artist's visiting fellowship at the Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC). She has recently contributed a chapter on her current work Growing up in the New Age: A Journey into Wonderland to the book Alternative Worlds (Berghahn 2012). Ryley's practice incorporates photography, the moving image, text, and objects to explore memory, history, familial relationships, and archivalnarratives, linking personal experiences with broader social and political issues. Ryley lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK with her husband, daughter and son. She lectures part-time in Photography and Video Art at the University of Sunderland.