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Alfred Loves… Tim Walker
9th December 2019
As part of this month’s culture currency, a monthly event where the Alfred team take an afternoon to explore some of London’s many and varied cultural happenings, we visited Tim Walker’s ‘Wonderful Things’ exhibition at the V&A.
Best known for his fashion editorial work with Vogue, the exhibition mixed Tim’s own work with curated collections from artists around the globe who inspired his photography. Accurate and surreal in equal measure, Tim Walker’s photography took us on a journey from observations of modern life, to fantastical situations created in Tim’s mind.
Walker provided comment throughout the exhibition, with his musing that “when you’re taking a picture, an extraordinary combination of luck and chaos takes over and you have to dance with the surprising moment”, encapsulating the feeling of the exhibition as a whole.
This idea of combining meticulous planning with the seizing of spontaneity is something that resonates with us as PR professionals. Great campaigns are often a fine balance of meticulous planning, and an instinctive awareness of the events happening around us at any given moment. Occasionally, a little bit of luck is thrown in for good measure.
Tim Walker’s exhibition challenged us to reconsider what we consider a photograph to be, and the story we assume it to tell. It invited us to open our minds to other possibilities and that with the right model, setting and props, it was indeed possible to capture anything. It was especially astonishing to get a glimpse into Tim’s process of realising an internal fantasy onto a single image.
Whether something you’re immediately drawn to, or something you are encouraged to attend for curiosity, Alfred’s culture currency challenges us to think in new ways. By getting out of the office and being inspired by others, we can bring new thinking back to the office and, hopefully, turn this into a great idea for a client.