As part of a university trip, we visited the ‘Nationhood: Memory and Hope’ exhibition at the Impressions Gallery in Bradford. This exhibition is a collection of different styles of works by various photographers and shows 

“powerful and poignant photography celebrating the diversity of the UK today. It is a love letter to all that is good in England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, and offers a wealth of insights on how we each try and shape both our identities and communities to make the world a better place.” (Statement from the Impressions Gallery)

          A collection of images that I felt was particularly powerful was ‘Near the Cross’ by Shaun Connell- a collection of black and white imagery from funerals that pays tribute to his Jamaican mother and Christians within Bradford. The images are deeply emotional and intimate photographs. Although the viewer does not necessarily know the specific story behind each image, the images are thought-provoking and provoke a lot of emotion for the viewer. I found this work interesting to look at as similarly to my project, the photographer is photographing a deeply personal moment whose meaning may not be immediately apparent to the viewer- the individual story for each image is not communicated but they all together communicate emotion and a wider meaning. Although all of the images within this collection are black and white with similar borders and the same frames, some of them are different sizes and the arrangement in which they are displayed is quite un-uniformed. I feel that these images are especially powerful in black and white as this encourages you to focus on the emotion within the photographs.

           An additional project that I felt particularly linked with my project was Haneen Hadiy’s project called ‘Scotland Through Her Eyes’, which is a collection of black and white imagery. These images express the duality of her belonging looking at her ancestral home of Iraq and her birthplace of Scotland, exploring her own cultural identity and family history. An element of these images that I feel is very powerful and effective is how well the two aspects have been combined into individual images to represent two different places at once. Combining multiple elements is something that I have begun to explore within my project, looking at how memory can be triggered by places and objects, and what happens when these two elements are combined. Haneen Hadiy’s photographs are displayed in quite a uniform manner with all of them having no border and two of the three images being the same size. These photographs being in black and white encourages the viewer to focus on the shape, texture and detail within the photographs. 

          These are just two of eight different photographers featured in this exhibition. All of the works from these photographers within this exhibition are fairly different, but the way that this exhibition has been curated has very effectively brought all of these works together. The use of coloured walls helped to separate the photographer’s work and created a very interesting effect rather than just having all of the work on white walls. Each of the works was displayed in the same white wooden frames but in very different ways with different borders and different layouts, enabling each photographer to display their work in their way whilst still making each collection of images work together. Overall I really enjoyed visiting this exhibition and it definitely gave me some food for thought going forward for displaying my work within the final show!

This exhibition features work from Aïda Muluneh, Roz Doherty,  Shaun Connell, Chad Alexander, Grace Springer, Robin Chaddah-Duke,  Miriam Ali and Haneen Hadiy. More information about this exhibition can be found on the Impressions Gallery website: www.impressions-gallery.com