The Moss

“To be rooted is the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.” - Simone Weil                                            

Moss: grows in damp or wet places; mild anti-bacterial properties, used as wound dressing during World War I and essential to the biopharmaceutical industry; slowly decays to form peat bogs and marshland; a region of the West Lancashire coastal plain, now drained to create fertile farmland.

The photographs in this exhibition were inspired by Marcel Proust’s masterpiece ‘A la recherché du temps perdu’ (In search of lost time) and by the photographer’s grandfather, who cycled the lanes of the Moss to recreate memories of his estranged homeland in Ukraine. The pictures were handcrafted using traditional darkroom methods, with the materiality of the paper playing an integral role in the making process. They depict quiet and inconspicuous scenes of an undiscovered country nearby and combine a documentary style with a subjective response to place. With the absence of people and few references to the modern day, the pictures convey a poetic longing for something that has passed.  

John Volynchook was born in Bootle and currently resides in Southport. Following a career in mental health and community social work, he turned to photography as a medium for creating narrative and visual storytelling. His photographic practice incorporates themes of identity, belonging and sense of place. John has been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts since 2005 and has recently completed a Master of Fine Art degree at the University of Plymouth. John was also the overall winner of the 2013 Warrington Contemporary Photography Open exhibition and is a guest judge at this year’s Festival.