exhibition

Palestine protest at Manchester Open exhibition

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This week has been interesting. After HOME in Manchester pulled a literary celebration of Gazan writing following a complaint from a Jewish lobby group, there was outrage from many people in the city. The weekly peace protest ended up outside the building on Saturday and this week artists in the Manchester Open exhibition came together with the desire to get involved. There was an open letter signed by around 170 artists (there are 480 in the show) and then last night I was among a group of participants of the exhibition who went and took down our work from the walls in protest about the silencing of Palestinian voices. It was a sombre action – it’s a strange feeling taking art out of an exhibition part way through. It put pressure on the bosses at HOME though – it turned the whole thing into a PR disaster for them and today they reinstated the original event. Their apology was somewhat mealy mouthed but still, it’s a result. Their original excuse that they were being politically neutral in cancelling the event was shown to be a nonsense. More here.

 

 

 

Stalybridge #9

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It was lovely to spend Saturday at the Astley Cheetham Gallery in Stalybridge, as part of the Local/Lokal exhibition, with @weare.local  and the other participating photographers, from the UK and Sweden. Seven visual interpretations of the theme ‘local’, three of which were shot in Stalybridge. As well as my portraits and interviews there were drone images and urban landscapes. Four of my 16 portrait participants made it along and a few other visitors commented that they knew almost all of the faces on my stretch of wall. And I saw a kingfisher on the bike ride there. The show is on until 21 December.

 

 

Stalybridge #8

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We weren’t able to share this until yesterday for Royal reasons but if you’re in Stalybridge this Sat it would be great to see you. I’m one of six artists (3x UK, 3x Swedish) to be involved in this project and exhibition, interrogating what it means to be local, and the work is going to be pretty diverse – from my portraiture to drone imagery and much more.

Stalybridge #6

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I was planning to return to Stalybridge today but I’ve realised I don’t need do.  After sitting down to think about the exhibition I realised I already have too many portraits to squash into the space and would have to cut a few out. It’s a shame because of the interview texts but some of the images are not as strong as I’d like anyway. So of 20 I have selected 16. I can only visualise things at this point by making mock ups, which is what I’ve done here. It may not be a final decision but this is roughly what I’m thinking. Anything interview-wise which doesn’t make the show will be shared on my blog and on social media.

Stalybridge #4

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I’ve been back to Stalybridge on two more occasions since my last post and have met quite a few people and had lots of conversations about the town.

Last Thursday I cycled back along the Ashton canal (well, I did once my husband had kindly fixed a last minute puncture for me) and kicked off my day meeting Charlie, a recently appointed curate at Holy Trinity Church in the town centre.

This is clearly a super active church community which does loads of good work trying to combat isolation, poverty and lots of other issues.

From there I tried my luck at one of the local allotments. I struck lucky – it was a busy morning and people were very willing to chat. I then went on to Bridge Beers, a bar and bottle shop which someone at WeAreLocal (project commissioners) had mentioned to me. David, the owner, was up for taking part.

The following day unfolded in much the same way. I had one appointment set up in advance and other than that walked around trying my luck with people I chanced upon.

I have a mental checklist while running these projects – I want to be as representative as possible in terms of age, gender, ethnicity etc. I don’t want to be prescriptive but it’s something I am conscious of.

I walked around and around the town, trying to spot people who could be worth trying. I have found people extremely friendly on the whole in Stalybridge and most have been very receptive to my questions.

The lady in the portrait above, Seraphine, is someone I got talking to on the street on Friday afternoon. She was incredibly friendly and receptive when I tentatively suggested going home with her (she had things to do there).

I had first been attracted by the fact she seemed so sweet and was carrying her baby on her back in the African style and envisaged photographing her like that but I love the intimacy of having made the image in her lounge. That portrait is by far my favourite of the series so far.

I have lots of transcribing to do now – since I always use people’s own words with my images – and will be returning to Stalybridge this Friday and again early next week. I have a few appointments lined up already and have sent several messages  today to positively address the gaps within the work, but there’s only so much that is possible within the time constraints for the project. At least I’m trying though.

The exhibition opens on 24 September at the Astley Cheetham Gallery in Stalybridge.

Street Level Photoworks exhibition

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I’m chuffed to be part of the This Separated Isle exhibition at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow at the moment.

The show features all the portraits from the beautiful book edited by Paul Sng – mine is of Owen Haisley, whose story I covered for Big Issue North.

Owen – who was born and lived for four years in Jamaica – lost his right to remain in the UK after serving a short prison sentence. He had spent over 40 years in the UK, never leaving the country. The result is that he now lives in limbo – unable to work and enjoy the same freedoms that most British citizens enjoy. It’s an outrage.

Thank you to Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert for the installation photo. You can order the book here.

 

People’s History Museum – #Welcome? exhibition

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It feels like a lifetime ago, but in 2018 and 2019 I spent some time on a self-initiated series of interviews and anonymous portraits which so far haven’t seen the light of day. The work was initiated by my friend Ramona – with whom I made a book in 2011.

Elvira and Me was my MA major project and told of the tensions which existed for Ramona – a Romani woman who moved to the UK from Romania – in her quest to pursue a career while also fulfilling her traditional wife/mother/daughter roles.

Ramona was by then working as a community organiser for a migrant support charity and thought it would be interesting to situate the stories of Romani people alongside those of other people who had migrated to the UK. Her suggestion was to do a handful of these vignettes – photos running alongside first person stories.

But me being me, I took the idea quite a bit further and ended up gathering 25 stories, featuring the words of migrants from across the world. Well, actually I collected 26 but one participant later withdrew his consent. The stories include people who moved here as children, individuals who came here seeking sanctuary and stories from people who moved later in life. The reason the portraits are all shot from behind is because there are asylum seekers among the stories – and they are not comfortable being identified. It made sense to photograph everyone in the same way.

One thing I have realised about myself over the past decade or more of doing so-called ‘personal projects’ on subjects I feel are important (and often doing them in ways that turn out to be basically unpublishable) is that I love making connections, talking to people and gathering stories. What I am very weak at is disseminating what I’ve made.

These stories have pretty much sat on my computer since 2019. I made a little dummy book but did little with it. But one of the few things I did was submit it to Manchester’s People’s History Museum, when I heard they were planning to programme their 2020 content around the theme of migration. The work was not selected as an exhibition in and of itself, but the curator later got back to me and asked to use four of the stories as part of some broader programming.

This was all very exciting. We had a meeting about it and then Covid arrived and it all went incredibly quiet. Until recently – after a hiatus of about seven or eight months the museum started putting together its #Welcome? exhibition. Sadly it’s not open at the moment, as Manchester is in Tier 3 and galleries and museums are shut. But once they can, I’ll be going to see the work, which is on until October 2021.

I think now is probably the time to start sharing some of these stories, so watch this space.

 

 

 

detonation: Mumbai

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“…then there were those kids, who for reasons unknown to any of us, decided to totally own the event. They would help sort images, put them up, gaurd them, and even they took time to explore the visuals themselves. The audience ranged from curious people walking past, to bloggers, photo enthusiasts, designers or couples looking to do something fun on the weekend.

“In a true Indian spirit, the work cannot be left untouched by the imperfections  in the world. So there were nails piercing the prints, and dirty finger prints giving new interpretations to the images themselves. The way images react to the surrounding crumbling walls or the leaves gave them new meaning. And often a perfect home…” Puneet Rakheja

I’ve been dying to hear how Blow-Up – the Blindboys street photography exhibition in Mumbai – went at the weekend and have finally found some write-ups and a few photos of how it looked. Thanks to Tenzin Dakpa for the image above of my own contribution. Reviews of how it went can be found here and here. Cheers guys!

There in spirit…

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Excitingly, I have work in a couple of most excellent events this weekend. Disappointingly, I won’t be present at either one….

First off tomorrow (Fri) evening, one (or possibly two) of my pieces are among around 25 slideshows being shown in Life.Still, part of the Bristol Festival of Photography. I know Young Carers Revolution is on the schedule and there’s a chance Zen and the art of Sandcastles could turn up as well. I’m not 100% sure. If you’re based in Bristol please go and have a beer for me….more info at the link above.

Secondly, a set of my Appleby Horse Fair images are being shown at Blow-Up Bombay, a street-art photography exhibition organised by the fantastic blindboys crew on Saturday. Over the past six months, blindboys has organised blow-ups in Bangalore, Paris and Delhi, displaying works from over 25 photographers and 2,500 pictures. On Saturday they take on India’s economic powerhouse Mumbai. I LOVE the idea of this – taking a really diverse group of photographers’ work to the streets and putting it in front of people who wouldn’t normally see it. I just wish I could be there……

As The Times of India puts it:

….In this Bollywood backyard, strewn with papier mâché Greco-Roman pillars and other discarded props that once featured in celluloid dreams, two photographers will set foot on Saturday, armed with cellotape and photographs printed on cheap paper. Together, they will embellish the tattered walls with not just their own works but also those of both established and amateur photographers received over the past few months. Works which, just like the roofless house, are constantly threatened by the oblivion of abandonment.

….The second Blow Up in Delhi’s busiest centre, Connaught Place, which saw about 50,000 visitors in a day and over 30 photographers, also surprised the duo with varied feedback. Cops stared and went their way, a passerby told Mahajan that his work on the melancholic youth of Kashmir reminded him of his own strifefilled days in Jharkhand, beggars tore off some pictures and used them as wallpaper and a paani puri wallah played art guide to some curious onlookers. “It’s this kind of direct connect with art and public space that we are looking to achieve,’’ says Mahajan, adding that most of the pictures disappear on their own by the third or fourth day.