Be Flat: Follow Me (2023)
1 of 2 images in the exhibition
The most recent Festival featured urban acrobats from Belgium, picking out a unique route up and across and within the buildings around Central Milton Keynes.
Starting as a pre-gathered group of watchers/participants carrying their chairs from a secret meeting place, passers-by were invited along with the ‘flash mob’ to witness some of the most hair-raising and gasp-inducing manoeuvres, alongside other set acrobatic and balance pieces.
I’m sure the iconic porte cocheres were not designed to be leapt from, not the high window ledges and cladding scaled, traversed and grabbed by two leaping Belgians. But there you go. IF you have the skill…
Photographing something like this, in fact most IF activity over these 15 years, is an intense mental and physical challenge as you are unaware of where the performers and the public will go, how each location will settle, what will actually happen and what imagery is found/offered that captures the human interaction, the performance, the location and all whilst creating a technically and aesthetically competent interesting image with available light.