SARAH GINN XX

At the end of 2021 I came up with XX. XX is a concept I formed as a way of collaborating between music artists with conceptual live acts and their visual teams/designers. This is to push the boundaries of what can be achieved in the area of live music/club performance and photography. This is an extension of what I call Visual Concept Music Photography, the new direction I’m going in. Where images are branded with the many inspirations, reference points and overall ethos from the act I’m working with. XX not only signifies creative multiplication between artists, but also signifies the XX female chromosome as a reference to the spiritual laws of the universe that everything has a duality through gender, which provides balance and equality in creative endeavours. The universe is about balance, and the systems of all things in the universe work the most efficiently when they are balanced. If we are to look at art and music, those things are powerful enough right now, but if we are to balance those ‘systems’ with varied inputs, then we optimise them. Therefore enabling these mediums to flow at their greatest potential.

The musical artist who I work with ends up being the overriding art director of the project. This is achieved by equally collaborating with, and finally collating the work, of with many varied artists that are part of their live show. This can be photographers, videographers, lighting designers, graphic designers etc. But as this is about artists mixing up skills sets with each other, they could also swop mediums. The lighting designers could write, the musical artist could take photos, I could try my hand at CAD with relation to stage design. All artists could research and add into a ‘pot’ of references. It’s meant to be an ‘elastic’ concept where the artists mediums are not ‘fixed’. Ultimately this also includes the audience, and somehow adding some kind of audience participation into this concept is an important feature.

Please note XX was previously called VS, but as of Sep 2024 I have decided to rename it XX, as it seemed a more apt and appropriate name.

XX can also apply to brands, marketing teams and any creative projects which require a new way of creative working. Visual Concept Photography can be applied to many projects.

I have often thought what projects I find inspiring in the realm of music photography, what medium they are and how music photography can be taken to new destinations…hence XX. Over the last ten years I’ve explored many ways of shooting electronic music in a physical photography sense (via HDR/Star Filtering/Double Exposures/Prism etc) and this is a full new concept to move music photography in a new exciting future direction. XX includes a new workflow model to enable the project to be carried out called The Mutual Muse Theory. Theoretical concepts are a large part of XX, to back up the branded photography which elevates these projects above normal art direction. You can make a ‘product’ but what if you actually made a ‘tool’? What if a visual product/project became something that could be useful via the written theory contained within it? These theories reference metaphysical, science, historical & philosophical texts, in an effort to provide its audience inspirational ‘fuel’ ideas for their own creative pursuits. AKA ‘A tool’ which you can use in whatever why you like. We gain inspiration from everything around us, sometimes subconsciously. So this is food, for the mind and soul. Which is a much more powerful intention than just creating a standard pictorial tour book (usually with a small blurb by a journalist at the start).

In a way, an XX project is a combined music, visual & theoretical Artefact. The definition of this word is: ‘An object made or modified by a human being, typically one of cultural or historical interest’ or ‘Something observed in scientific investigation or experiment that is not naturally present but occurs as a result of the preparative or investigative procedure’. Both these definitions explain the XX concept as a ‘whole’. The root of the word also comes into play and stems from Arte ‘by or using art’ and Factum/Facere ‘make/something made’

Please see the XX projects carried out over the last year or so & test pitches for more information.

Any acts/venues/events that would like to discuss a Sarah Ginn XX project please email sarah@sarahginn.co.uk