The Dynamic
Abertillery, November 26 2015
“You ask about the paper called Dynamic. It was conceived a year or so
ago somewhere between the coast of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. I was on
holiday with a friend of mine who also churns out words and we decided that we might churn some out in Blaenau Gwent, the area we live in, and see what would happen. Four months later - give or take a few days peppered with swearing as I learnt the intricacies of basic design - the first issue appeared, a tentative exercise picked up at 7am from the print works and released without warning in one of the most deprived areas of post-industrial Wales.
If you think doing a paper is easy work, try getting up each day and producing, between two people, the equivalent of a small book each fortnight. Yet the pleasure you get when those batches of new papers are loaded on the van – that’s special, and you work your soul out to achieve it. There’s nothing quite like watching the dawn rising on distribution day as you make your way towards the print-works, or getting back and having a pint or five in your favourite pub as people read words you worked hard to get out all around you. It’s a different scenario I know, but referring back to Auden again I find myself thinking rather of the end of the film “Night Mail” when “The climb is done”, and “Men are longing for news” – there’s a descent into the new day that seems as exhilarating to me now as the arrival of the train must have felt to those postal workers almost 80 years ago. That is worth working for, if nothing else.”
Julian Meek
Editor
Artist Profile(s)
Sebastian Bruno
b.1989. Argentine/Spanish photographer based in Wales.
Based on my own individual and collective experiences, together with a strong responsibility to both place and people, my personal practice intends to understand and explore the complexity of human relations within its political, historical and social context. To interpret the world, communities and people who may have been passed by in the name of progress, is what provides me with the means to create authentic and charged narratives, that go beyond the boundaries of traditional documentary practice.
In 2015 Magnum Photos selected me as one of 30 photographers under 30 and as one of the 10 best UK graduates. My previous body of work Duelos y Quebrantos, due to be published this year, has been exhibited and published widely across the UK and continental Europe. Additionally, It has been shortlisted for numerous awards, Prix Levallois (France), Prix Roger Pic (France), Bar Tur Photobook Award (UK), Fotopres La Caixa (Spain), among others.
I am a graduate from the prestigious Documentary Photography course at the University of South Wales (formerly Newport).