As I collected my tickets from the press desk at Factory International, I mentioned that I had been looking forward to this show. After all, it was one of the most positively-received events at Manchester International Festival in 2023, but one that I had missed.
“‘I think you’ll be very moved,” said the press officer.
Find Your Eyes is by Benji Reid, an award-winning photographer based in Manchester. He’s also a pioneer of hip-hop theatre. Here, he combines elements of all of these disciplines, manoeuvring three models and creating various photo-studio set-ups. A DJ plays music, and situations are punctuated by captions relaying the type of photography we’re seeing, such as portraits, as the lighting of incense and the sound of a Tibetan Buddhist-type bell offer further punctuation. Reid’s photographs are projected onto two large screens in real time while he provides an occasional pre-recorded narration, stories from a traumatic personal life that interlace as the images come and go.
So, we watch the creative process unfold as the artist muses on his life and experiences, some of which are tragic and haunting. This process starts simply, individual models photographed in stark black and white, close-ups of hands, of skin. Individuals become couples and, in one powerful sequence, playful embraces become a power struggle, an abuse, unfolding before the lens and before our eyes. As the creative process progresses, Reid’s set-ups become more elaborate, more colourful, more fantastical. In an epilogue, beautifully timed over Bjork’s song Unison, the images taken over the course of the evening project sequentially, culminating in one final, perfect photograph.
Find Your Eyes at Manchester International Festival 2023, Benji Reid, Slate Hemedi (c) Oluwatosin Daniju
Find Your Eyes is a fantastic concept. But, much like many of the images projected throughout the course of 90 minutes, it feels like the start of something that needs more work. Reid’s photography is renowned for its theatricality, its dream-like quality, its gravity-defying magic, much of which is achieved in post where elaborate editing and processing allows various elements to combine to create something fantastical. For those familiar with his work, it’s apparent that the images we’re seeing have a long way to go before being a finished product, and this is what Find Your Eyes feels like. A concept, an idea, a starting point, but not a finished piece of work.
As an insight into creativity, it’s not particularly revealing. When it comes to photographers doing photoshoots, the images we see are starting points towards something more refined. As a piece of autobiography, we learn some intimate and painful things about Reid, but it’s not always apparent how these feed into his creative process or manifest in the images we are seeing. Early on in the narration, Reid states that he aims not to photograph what someone looks like, but what they’ve been through, a tantalising promise that the subsequent images don’t always convey. It’s hard to match that statement with the most enthralling part of the evening – a mesmerising pole dance performed with such grace and beauty that Reid’s photographs come across as a poor substitute for the real thing.
Having said that, the final image is a stunner, and perhaps that’s part of the point – we are all a work in progress and there’s a lot of trial and error in the journey towards creating something truly beautiful.
When the show was performed at MIF 23, The Guardian gave it five stars. Meanwhile, many audience members at the Dublin Theatre Festival walked out, according to some reviews. The show lies somewhere between these two versions and, perhaps, it’s down to how much you like your theatre as a work in progress or fully photoshopped that will dictate your reaction.
“I think you’ll be very moved” I was told on the way in. Sadly, I wasn’t.
Main image: Find Your Eyes at Manchester International Festival 2023, Benji Reid, Yvonne Smink, Slate Hemedi (c) Oluwatosin Daniju.
