Abu-Bakr Madden Al-Shabazz

Posted on May 10, 2024

Abu-Bakr has been in the teaching and learning profession for over 30 years and has contributed immensely to various high promotional roles in primary and secondary schools. He has been a high school psychologist, head of department, head of key stage 3 & 4, teacher trainer, assistant headteacher and deputy head teacher for a private academy in 2018.

In 2009 he created the first ever Black and African history studies programme degree for community and university students and was the original founder of the Black History Month Management Committee 365 in black social and cultural history workshops since 2006.

In December 2023 his startup company ACAP Academy UK won the Lifestyle Coaching Welsh Prestige Award 2023-2024 for his work in therapy, television, radio, report writing for Welsh awarding bodies and designing BAME curriculums for the University of South Wales, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Cardiff & Vale College and the Welsh Government’s New Welsh Curriculum.

At Present Abu-Bakr works as a psychologist at Ebbw Vale College and provides Anti-Racist training for the Welsh National Health Service and the University of South Wales. He also provides teacher training seminars in education leadership and BAME heritage, culture and identity around wales in Welsh primary, secondary, college and university institutions and has contributed to documentaries for school resources called: Wales, England’s Colony BBC, Wales Untold and Humanitree which won the Black films Award in Canada in 2023.

Dan Ward

Posted on May 10, 2024

Originally from Liverpool but now based in Cardiff, Dan trained as an ecologist, working in river catchment and landscape scale conservation and restoration before moving into policy at Natural Resources Wales, and now as an independent advisor working in system thinking and system change. Dan got the rewilding bug many years ago, seeing that we had systems with the parts (key species and natural processes) missing, and that we needed to restore these parts to get our systems working again. Dan works with Tir Natur, helping to achieve the Tir Natur ambition of rewilding an area in Wales to show what large scale rewilding in Wales can achieve, and also works with Rewilding Britain.

“The reality is we live in such a degraded and empty world, nearly devoid of wildlife compared to what people in Wales would have lived with a couple of hundred years ago. This is what excites me, to imagine bringing life back to Wales in a way we haven’t seen for generations. Crucially, doing this alongside people and communities in Wales.”

Jaime Jackson

Posted on May 10, 2024

Jaime Jackson is a digital/relational artist and visual art producer for saltroad.org. His practice uses painting, drawing, digital technologies including motion capture, augmented reality and moving image (film). His work responds to the earth crisis by exploring the idea that we are nature, as a way of developing health and well being, mitigating and adapting to the climate crisis. Born in Oxford he worked for BBC local radio as a child presenter for the natural history program Nature trail for 7 years, he has a degree in Fine Art Painting from Coventry University and trained in Arts Management at Sussex University. He is artist director of both the art organization Salt Road and the environmental charity New Leaf, Jaime is a coordinator for Culture Declares Emergency and a member of Climate Musuem UK. CDE’s Vision is that the cultural sector is a leading contributor in creating a regenerative future that protects the planet and sustains everyone, everywhere. Jaime is a member of Climate Psychology Alliance and the Biophilic City Network.

Sophie Gerrard

Posted on April 29, 2024

Sophie Gerrard is an award-winning photographer based in Edinburgh. Her practice is characterised by a sensitive and evocative visual exploration of the natural environment and landscape and our relationship to it. Central themes in her work are people, environmental connection, identity and belonging. With a background in environmental science her work is often as much an exploration of other people’s lives and connections with landscape as her own. Her work has been exhibited widely including Paris Photo, The Martin Parr Foundation, The Photographers’ Gallery, The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, OFF festival Bratislava, FORMAT International Photography Festival, The Fox Talbot Museum, and Perth Museum & Art Gallery. She has also been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Financial times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Telegraph, Esquire Magazine and Harpers and her work is held in private and national collections including The Sir Elton John Collection, The National Collection of Scotland, The University of St Andrews Special Collection and Couttes Bank private collection.

Yangzi QIU

Posted on April 29, 2024

QIU Yangzi (Yangzi), a London-based Chinese visual artist, immerses herself in the realms of experimental philosophical analog photography. With roots in mainland China and a penchant for global exploration, her journey intertwines education and artistic discovery. Since 2012, she has refined her craft through workshops led by esteemed masters of art photography across the US, Europe, and China. Yangzi's work serves as a quest to unravel "What is Reality" and the essence of self-existence, embracing chance as a core element in her creative process. By challenging conventions and exploring new presentation methods, she pushes the boundaries of photography's definition and expression. Her portfolio, featuring series like "Rotation" and "Cloud and Stone," has earned accolades, including the Source FORMAT Portfolio Award 2024 and publication with Nearest Truth Edition. Yangzi's art beckons viewers to ponder the fluidity of existence and the enigmas it holds.

Lauren Pitson

Posted on April 29, 2024

Lauren Pitson is a multi-disciplinary artist based in South Wales. Her practice and research are predominantly influenced by thoughts surrounding impermanence, ecology and the form. Her work often combines photography with alternative processes by collecting, deconstructing and reprocessing materials in order to document and explore these connections.

Ackroyd & Harvey

Posted on April 29, 2024

Ackroyd & Harvey make interdisciplinary works that combine art, activism, biology, ecology and history, and make reference to memory/time, nature/culture and political ecologies. Processes of growth and decay are integral to artworks that evolve through extended research interfacing their long-standing interest in local ecologies and anthropogenic climate change. Their time-based practice frequently features living plant material.

From the start of their collaboration in 1990, the artists have received international awards and prizes for their bio-chemical photographic work and have been widely commissioned for monumental artistic interventions in the public sector.

They have exhibited at the Hayward Gallery, London (2023), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA (2023), Royal Academy of Arts, London (2022), Somerset House, London (2022), Tate Modern, London (2021), The Ashmolean, Oxford (2018), The David Attenborough Building, Cambridge (2016), and more. They participated in the 23RD Biennale of Sydney (2022), ARoS Triennale, Denmark (2017), Colomboscope, Sri Lanka (2017) and shown work in sites of special interest including the Jardin des Plantes, Paris (2015), and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London (2012).

Ackroyd & Harvey are prominent advocates in placing the climate and ecological emergency at the centre of the artistic landscape and in 2019, co-initiated Culture Declares Emergency, a network of international and UK hubs sharing knowledge and practical support to seek justice, regenerative change and provide care through culture, heritage and the arts.

Gareth Phillips

Posted on April 29, 2024

Gareth Phillips is a photographer exploring contemporary definitions of the photobook, creating them as objects, sculptures and installations. He has an established international exhibition and award history, and was a finalist for the 2023 Aesthetica Art Prize, The KG+ Kyotographie Japan Award, The Gomma New Flavours Award, the winner of the 2023 RAKFAF Festival Award for Sculpture and was featured artist at the Photo2024 Festival in Australia. He is an alumni and board member of the Reflexions Masterclass and is based between the UK and Spain.

Geraldine Lublin

Posted on February 23, 2024

Geraldine Lublin is an Associate Professor at Swansea University’s Department of Literature, Media, and Language. Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she has lived in Wales since 2002. It was at Cardiff University’s School of Welsh that she completed her PhD, which focused on the special standing of the Welsh community in Chubut in relation to the region and the rest of Argentina. This led her to develop an interest in the wider dynamics of the region, including nation-building in Argentina, indigenous populations and settler colonial theory. She is the author of Memoir and Identity in Welsh Patagonia: Voices from a settler community in Argentina (University of Wales Press, 2017), which critically explores autobiographical materials written by Welsh descendants towards the end of the twentieth century. More recently, she has been inspired by Pedagogy of Degrowth approaches to undertake projects which contribute to highlight how the climate crisis, global inequalities and the dominant growth-oriented economic culture are closely interrelated.

Patricia Hayes

Posted on February 23, 2024

Patricia Hayes is National Research Foundation SARChI Chair in Visual History & Theory at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. She currently holds a FIAS (French Institutes for Advanced Study) fellowship at IEA-Nantes (2023-24) where she is developing a project on colonial photographic archives. She is co-editor of several recent volumes, including Ambivalent. Photography and Visibility in African History (2019), a special issue of the journal Kronos 46 (2020) on ‘Other Lives of the Image,’ and also Love and Revolution in the Twentieth-Century Colonial and Postcolonial World: Perspectives from South Asia and Southern Africa (2021).

Thierry Mandarin

Posted on February 23, 2024

Thierry Mandarin is an MSc post-graduate in Social Research Methods at the University of Sussex, with a BSc in Social Anthropology and Sociology from the University of Roehampton, London. He completed his MSc dissertation on the “intergenerational challenges, cultural identity and future prospects of the Chagossian community in Manchester” – focusing the subsequent generations of Chagossians; migration stories; impact and legacy of parents and grandparents and the future for the community after the Nationality Borders Bill 2022. He is of Chagossian heritage and identifies as Black.

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay

Posted on February 22, 2024

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay is a film essayist and independent curator of anticolonial archives and exhibitions, and Professor of Modern Culture and Media and Comparative Literature at Brown University. Her research and books focus on the potential history of key political concepts and institutions: the archive, sovereignty, art, and human rights. Potential history, a concept and an approach that she has developed over the last decade, has far-reaching implications for the fields of political theory, archival formations, and photography studies.

Azoulay is the author of Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism (2019) and The Civil Contract of Photography (2008). Her films include The World Like a Jewel in the Hand: Unlearning Imperial II (2022) and Un-documented: Undoing Imperial Plunder (2019).

Audrey Albert

Posted on January 29, 2024

Audrey Albert is a Mauritian-Chagossian, visual artist and creative facilitator. Based in Manchester, Audrey’s research-led practice enables her to consider and investigate themes of mixed identity, collective memory and displacement.

Selected for the Future Fires 2020 programme at Contact and the 2021 Creative Fellowship for Manchester International Festival, Audrey is currently working on Chagossians of Manchester (CoM) and Ble Kouler Lakaz (Blue is the colour of Home), both socially-engaged art project about Chagossian culture and heritage.

Audrey’s work highlights stories of empowerment that celebrate Chagossian culture and heritage. Through these works, she pay homage to Chagossian ancestors, including her own, whose descendants are still affected by forceful displacement.

Tracy Harris

Posted on October 31, 2023

Tracy is an Artist, Writer, Theatre and film-maker based in Cardiff.

Kaylee Francis

Posted on October 31, 2023

As a Documentary photographer Kaylee is interested in exploring issues relating to the representation and misrepresentation of lower socio-economic communities. Her work considers the possibilities of using photography and activism for agency and social change.

Ffion Denman

Posted on October 31, 2023

Ffion Denman is a photographer and educator currently living in Cardiff.

My body of work opens up complex conversations on cultural displacement and the values of Welsh identity in Patagonia. The work in progress, goes beyond a romanticised notion of my Patagonia from my childhood imagination and invites onlookers to consider a more nuanced and intricate story; which includes the question of what happens when a dominant culture overshadows a minor, and more vulnerable one.

Viv Collis

Posted on October 31, 2023

Viv Collis lives and works in Southwest Wales. After a significant career working as a Youth & Community Worker, she went on to study BA Photojournalism & Visual Activism, then MA Contemporary Dialogues at Swansea College of Art. Viv’s extensive community involvement influences her work, and her art practice focuses on social documentary, exploring those under-represented, those mis-represented, and diverse community groups. Her projects start with in-depth research of archival and contemporary materials, often initiated by a current political issue, and develop through a critical involvement with the subject via networking, interviews and personal and participatory engagement. The work is entwined with a political narrative, designed to both inform and challenge the viewer, taking the form of conceptual, multi-platform storytelling.

Shaun Lowde

Posted on October 31, 2023

Following a career as a lawyer to international media and entertainment clients, Shaun Lowde has recently ‘repurposed’ himself and is now pursuing a new direction as a photographer and digital content artist based in West Wales.

Shaun's practice has evolved into an exploration of digital content as a means of communicating the conceptual. He uses a range of digital and photographic processes to comment upon contemporary philosophical, environmental and sociological concerns.

Shaun has recently graduated with a first class honours degree in Photography from Coleg Sir Gar (Carmarthenshire School of Art). His work has appeared in exhibitions, magazines and online publications. It has won, and been shortlisted for, several awards.

Shannon Maggie

Posted on October 31, 2023

Shannon Maggie is an inquisitive, mixed-media artist and photographer based in Pembrokeshire, South-West Wales. Shannon Maggie’s practice explores cultural issues surrounding history, identity, and societal norms. Her practice is process-driven as she explores new ways of communicating philosophies concerning the human experience. Maggie is a workshop facilitator who encourages participants to embrace the imperfections within their imagery to foster new narratives. Collaboration with the community is at the heart of Maggie’s practice. She hopes to encourage others to push their creative boundaries through the medium of photography.

Robin Chaddah-Duke

Posted on October 31, 2023

Robin Chaddah-Duke is a photographer and filmmaker who works with a grassroots documentary approach. His work revolves around exploring the experiences of marginalised and minority communities within Britain. Their work is grounded in historical contexts and aims to inspect how notions of Britishness are changing.

Megan Morgan

Posted on October 31, 2023

Megan Morgan is a Pembrokeshire, Wales base digital photographer. Graduated from Carmarthen college school of art in BA multidisciplinary photography and 3d design. Megan’s interests are in animal photography using her love of animals to drive her in creativity. She is fascinated by the connection that humans and animals have with one another, and just how important that connection can be. Using a lens to capture the beautiful animals of the world. From working at folly farm her photography is diverse, from kittens to tigers no animal is left out.

Mareah Ali

Posted on October 31, 2023

Mareah Ali is a Welsh photographer who was born profoundly deaf. She recently graduated from the University of South Wales in Cardiff with a First-Class Honours degree in Photography. She found photography as a means of self-expression, in particular around the issues of deafness. After graduating, her work was exhibited at the StudioMADE gallery in Denbigh, North Wales.

Mareah has also connected and worked as a photographer with deaf and hearing creative practitioners, including the artist Johnny Cotsen and Taking Flight Theatre Company. She has also worked with the Sir Gareth Edwards Cancer Charity.

Katie Nia

Posted on October 31, 2023

Katie Nia is a Photographic Artist based in South Wales, with an intrigue for history. Nia discovered a fascination with not only the development of photography to what we know it as today, but also with the analogue processes that had contributed to getting us there. She now uses her work to experiment and explore the photographic styles and processes from as early as the 1800’s to combine both the future with the past, giving life to some of the forgotten practices. Nia takes inspiration from psychological events both conscious and subconscious and explores their links within her own life both past and present. Nia uses her work to capture significance and meaning through the inspiration of Walter Benjamin’s concept of ‘aura’ as well as Jacques Derrida and his concept of hauntology, exploring their impact in not only her own life but also with those around her.

Jean Chan

Posted on October 31, 2023

As a photographer, I love and lean towards Fashion and Art Photography. Throughout my years in university, I gained a heavy interest in Narrative Photography and Cinematography and now tend to mix these genres in subsequent projects that I take on. Through 'Burnout’ I wish to speak to the viewer and communicate a mixture of the senses of sorrow and serenity. For them to find relatability in these visions and solace as they look on.

Emma Spreadborough

Posted on October 31, 2023

Emma Spreadborough (b.2000) is an Irish artist who works predominantly in the photographic media. Her art practice is widely influenced by Irish literature, history, and folklore. Emma is a recent graduate of Swansea College of Art, where she studied from 2020-23. Since completing her degree, she moved back to Belfast to continue her practice. She is currently a studio owner at Flax Art Studios, within the Emerging Artists Programme.

Alice Forde

Posted on October 31, 2023

Ambiguity is a focus in my creative vision. I find a playfulness in making my photography a question and not a statement. Fashion is the catalyst which allows me to do this whilst exploring culture, human relations and their behaviour in my vibrant and visually experimental photographic work. Having just graduated from BA Photography at the University of South Wales I look forward to gaining more experience in editorial fashion photography particularly focusing on publications and creating physical bodies of work.

Danielle Webb

Posted on August 22, 2023

My name is Danielle Webb, I’m 24, and I was born with a condition called Achondroplasia- my condition means that at 24- Im 3ft11 tall- half the size of my peers- but it’s not something I’ve ever tried to let stop me, if anything I’d say my condition has shaped a huge part of my passion and the successes I’ve had in recent years. In 2021, I published my first children’s book- Mummy, there’s a new girl. In recent years I’ve also written for Cosmopolitan magazine and featured in fabulous summer body campaign. I recently graduated with an MA degree for Working for children and young people- and in February of this year was appointed Vice Chair for Little People UK- a charity which aims to provide support for people with dwarfism and their families. Through my multiple roles a common passion is to help young people achieve potential- especially when it comes to the arts. As a dancer who had a disability- I was always provided with barriers more often than not systematic ones- but I believe the power to express and create lies within everyone and putting our differences aside- if you have a dream, both size and society shouldn’t stop you.

Jack Moyse

Posted on July 10, 2023

Jack Moyse is a photographer and artist based in Swansea, South Wales. His practice focuses on societal issues such as the demonisation of migrants, ableism, and mental health. Jack has been invited to speak at a number of colleges, universities, photo festivals and symposia, including University of South Wales, University of Wales Trinity St David Swansea, Carmarthen School of Art and the Trauma Porn Symposium in Bristol (supported by Bristol Photography Research Group). In April this year he was also invited to exhibit at and contribute to the Healing Through Photography conference at Belfast Exposed.

Chris Fairweather

Posted on June 19, 2023

Chris is a staff photographer and Head of Pictures & Video development at Huw Evans Picture Agency, the leading photographic agency in Wales. Upon finishing school, he embarked on his professional journey in his native Gloucestershire, working for agency Thousand Word Media. Seeking further growth, he ventured to Leeds, where he took up a photographer's role at Ross Parry News & Picture Agency.

In 2013, Chris relocated to Cardiff, a city that has become a canvas for his photographic storytelling. During this time he’s captured various facets of life in South Wales, events such as Rugby World Cups, visits from royalty, breaking news stories, and diverse commercial projects.

Paul Ellis

Posted on June 13, 2023

Paul Ellis has been an Agence France-Presse staff photographer in the north of England for 17 years covering pretty much anything and everything that happens. A lot of sport, but often breaking news, royal visits and political events in this country and abroad. He is the chair of The BPPA. A role that he is incredibly proud of ensuring, the association’s commitment to promoting photojournalism and press photography. He studied photojournalism with the NCTJ in Sheffield more than 25 years ago, working at weekly and regional newspapers, local and national press agencies, as a freelance for national newspapers and internationally with The Associated Press and now AFP.

Hannah McKay

Posted on June 13, 2023

Hannah McKay is a staff photographer for Reuters based in London. She covers a variety of news, sport and features. Hannah completed a BA (Hons) in Photography at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) in 2009 before gaining industry experience as an intern for The Coventry Telegraph newspaper. In 2012 Hannah moved to London as a photographer for a regional photo agency before freelancing for international wire agencies. Joining Reuters in 2017, Hannah has had the opportunity to work on assignments worldwide, including; an Olympic Games, the Fifa World Cup, the Migrant Caravan, a Royal Wedding, Funeral and Coronation, the US Presidential Election and the Queen’s Funeral. Hannah was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of the Rohingya Refugee Crisis. She won The Guardian’s Agency Photographer of the Year and her work has been recognised by the British Journalism Awards, The Picture Editors’ Guild Awards, The British Press Photographers’ Association (The BPPA) and the International Photography Awards (IPA).

Fareid Atta

Posted on June 09, 2023

I spent eight months in Samos, Greece, in 2020, where I worked for an NGO by the refugee camp as an Arabic interpreter and as a freelance journalist. Seeing the disparity between my lived experience of the refugee crisis in Greece and its depiction in western media inspired a lifelong interest in the humanitarian affairs of the region and migration issues. I was also in awe of the refugees I met there and their talents and resilience so I decided to make a short-documentary about them.

I'm British born and raised, read English Literature for my undergraduate studies and graduated from University of Edinburgh in 2019 with a Master's degree in Middle Eastern Studies with Arabic.

After volunteering for the NGO Med’Equali Team in 2020, I returned to the UK where I worked for a think tank, and I am currently working as a journalist for Cambridge News.

Benjamin Chesterton

Posted on January 26, 2023

Benjamin directs and produces duckrabbit’s film work and leads our training. Before co-founding the company in 2008, Benjamin worked for the BBC producing documentaries.

Nelly Ating

Posted on January 26, 2023

Nelly Ating is a photojournalist who focuses on questions of identity, activism, education, extremism, and migration. Her photographic work documenting the rise of Boko Haram terrorism between 2014 and 2020 in Northeast Nigeria highlighted the link between radicalisation and the mediatisation of the aftermath of conflict. Ating has presented her photographic work in academic and non-academic settings in Africa, Europe, and America. Currently, she is pursuing a PhD at Cardiff University on the intersection of visual culture and human rights advocacy.

Tudor Etchells

Posted on January 26, 2023

Tudor Rhys Etchells (Wales, 1994) is a photographer, researcher and human rights lawyer for clients in the migration system. His work attempts to reveal systems that remain out of sight but that are imagined in the social conscience. For Etchells, the photographic medium, with its own cumbersome structures of viewing and representing, can be used to deconstruct processes and norms of wider social structures. His work as a human rights lawyer is a point of departure for his photographic research into systems of social control and the role of visual evidence within them.

Mark Seymour

Posted on January 26, 2023

Mark has lived in Newport for 27 years. He worked professionally as a Lead teacher in a multicultural school in Cardiff for 25 years. In 2005, Mark founded the Sanctuary to support asylum seekers and refugees rebuild their sense of community and belonging in Newport. The project, run by the small local Newport charity The Gap Wales, is based on Stow Hill and offers a range of holistic wellbeing support and activities to refugees and asylum seekers. He enjoys cycling, gardening, watching rugby and is passionate about tackling injustice.

Dylan Moore

Posted on January 26, 2023

Dylan Moore is a prolific commentator on the media and culture of Wales. He currently leads media policy work for the Institute of Welsh Affairs and has edited the welsh agenda magazine since 2014. His journalism and cultural commentary has appeared widely, including in the Times Educational Supplement, Daily Telegraph, Vanity Fair and on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 1Xtra.

Dylan’s latest book is the novel Many Rivers to Cross, which won a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship 2022. The book is partly based on his experiences volunteering and working at the Sanctuary Project for refugees in Newport, and concerns migration from Ethiopia.

His first book Driving Home Both Ways, a collection of travel essays, was published in 2018 – the same year Dylan was awarded Hay Festival’s International Fellowship.

Dylan lives with his family in Cardiff.

Paul Dear

Posted on January 19, 2023

Paul Dear is Deputy Director of the Cohesive Communities Division in the Welsh Government. The division includes the Inclusion and Cohesion team which leads the Welsh Government’s work in relation to refugees, asylum seekers and refused asylum seekers. This includes managing the implementation of the Nation of Sanctuary Refugee and Asylum Seeker Plan and related work including Afghanistan Integration and Resettlement. Paul has worked for the Welsh Government since 2006, having previously worked for local government, the voluntary sector and the Methodist Church. In a private capacity, he was the founding chair of the Trinity Centre in Cardiff, which provides support for refugees and asylum seekers. Paul lives in Cardiff.

Carolyn Johnstone

Posted on January 19, 2023

Carolyn fell into being involved with the Afghan Interpreters by accident. She sent a tweet, which was responded to by a number of Afghan ‘Terps who had been refused acceptance to the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy. She approached a former soldier, Charlie Herbert, to ask how to to appeal the decision. Due to his leading on the political campaign backed by other former senior military staff, he said that he didn’t have time. Charlie sent Carolyn to Johnny Mercer MP who replied to her email stating that he couldn’t help, and that Charlie was the man to go to…

So started Carolyn’s journey with assisting many Afghan Terps and their families to escape being hunted by the women hating, authoritarian, despotic Taliban.

Born in Porthcawl, where her father still lives, Carolyn is a mum of two, a wife of one and has a history of campaigning for disabled rights/opportunities and for women. With a varied work history including cleaning, Tequila Girl, selling chemical toilets (please don’t mention the festivals), Parliamentary candidate and Councillor. Unafraid of taking and holding a moral stance she humbly describes herself as the backbone of the nation.

What others have said about Carolyn:

“Doin’ The Lord’s Work”

“Who are you?”

“She was there from the day the Taliban started searching in Kabul for us. She never ignored us. She did more than our expectations. Finally she saved me and today I made it to the UK. I will remember Carolyn for my whole life.”

Shereen Williams

Posted on January 19, 2023

Shereen Williams MBE OStJ DL is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Local Democracy and Boundary Commission for Wales (LDBCW) and Secretary to the Boundary Commission for Wales (BCW). Prior to this, she worked in local government for nearly a decade across Newport and Monmouthshire Local Authorities as the Connected Communities Manager and before that as the Regional Community Cohesion Co-ordinator for East Gwent. The team she managed were responsible for the delivery of strategic priorities including Migration, Preventing Violent Extremism, Equalities and Community Cohesion. During her time in this role, she was the lead officer in overseeing the Afghan Interpreters Resettlement programme in Monmouthshire, the first local authority in Wales to support to the programme.

Dr Sara de Jong

Posted on December 12, 2022

Dr Sara de Jong is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Politics, University of York, who researches the protection and resettlement of Afghan interpreters employed by Western armies. Since 2017, she has conducted more than 80 interviews with interpreters and advocates in the UK, US, Canada, Germany, France and the Netherlands. She is also the co-founder of the charity Sulha Alliance, which advocates for Afghan interpreters who worked for the British Armed Forces.

Andy Barnham

Posted on December 12, 2022

Andy Barnham is a photographer, veteran and son of a refugee. Mixed race English/ Chinese and multilingual (English, Chinese, French and Farsi) Andy was born in Hong Kong and attended school and university in the UK before serving as an officer in the Royal Artillery, deploying on operational tours multiple times to Iraq, Cyprus and Afghanistan where he documented his experiences as a hobbyist photographer. After leaving the British Army Andy turned this passion into a career and landed on Savile Row becoming immersed in London’s sartorial scene. For over a decade he photographed the best of British heritage and craft for luxury editorial titles before focusing his observational and interpersonal skills on portraiture. We Are Here was a winner at the 2022 Prix de la Photographie, Paris (PX3) photography awards in the portraiture category.

Ross Gardner

Posted on November 07, 2022

Ross Gardner is a photographer from the west coast of Scotland. Often taking inspiration from science fiction stereotypes and conspiracy theories Gardner questions how these relate to the world around him. Working with the photographic image, alongside archival and screen-based imagery, Gardner explores themes around technology, the future, and global
power dynamics. He seeks to explore and uncover subjects existing at the fringes of truth, often questioning the role the photograph has played within these subjects.

Pinar Köksal

Posted on November 07, 2022

Pinar Koksal was born in Turkey in 1988. She is based in Cardiff, UK. She got her visual communication design degree from AHBV University, Faculty of Fine Arts. Her work is inspired by her inquiries on the functioning of the universe, the connection of humans with the universe, their position in the universe and life cycles based on endless repetition. Photography, which she uses as a material in her art production, sometimes appears before her as the most concrete example of personal memory and sometimes opens different doors for her with the random formations as a result of her experimental interventions on analogue films.

Her works are displayed in exhibitions ‘Young Fresh Different 11’, Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul (2022); ‘Nightswimming’, Evliyagil Museum, Ankara (2021); ‘Mamut Art Project’, Yapı Kredi Bomonti Ada, Istanbul (2020) and ‘Habitat’, Ka Atelier, Ankara (2019). She has an artist book titled ‘Pale Blue Dot’ which was produced collectively and exhibited at Mamut Art Project (2020). As a member of Faz Collective, Pinar Koksal was one of the curators of the photosets ‘Photozine #3’ and ‘Photozine #4’ which were produced in collaboration with Fail Books and Faz Collective in 2021. She also took part in ‘Photozine #4’ photoset with the ‘Return to the Womb’ series.

Paris Tankard

Posted on November 07, 2022

Paris Tankard is a 21-year-old Black British, award winning artist from Dagenham, Essex. Their work often looks at the members of our society and seeks to uplift them, focusing on issues such as Race, Sexuality and Class. Paris’ work aims to create a dialogue and/or discourse for any person - regardless of their identity - who might engage with it. An equally important facet of their work is to document the events and formative moments of peoples lives, conceptualised within their most recent project: a documentation of the lives of queer people of colour.

Paris has exhibited their work most recent creative work in the Free Range Gallery in Shoreditch, London. The project received best in show at the AOP awards.

Paris is still pursuing their art in Cardiff.

Laurie Broughton

Posted on November 07, 2022

Laurie Broughton is a Social Documentary photographer from London. He is a recent Graduate studying Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales.

Laurie's practice explores themes around subculture, social housing and the environment. Through research and exposure to his subjects, he aims to challenge himself to look underneath the surface of preconceived notions of identity and its cultural stereotypes, by immersing himself within the communities he photographs often over a prolonged period.

His work questions outdated views on communities to challenge societal norms in the form of immersive image-making.

Laurentina Miksys

Posted on November 07, 2022

The portraits by photographer Laurentina Miksys have been described as opulent, timeless, and emotionally expressive. When they have a soul, images allow our sensitivity to engage with the subject and create empathy with what we see. She believes that this sense of contact changes our state of mind. As such, her photography explores various levels of reality: the reality of who or what is described by the image and the reality of experience and feeling - whether the subject’s, the viewers, or her own. This is what we bring to the image and, once transformed, take it away with us.

Kerry Woolman

Posted on November 07, 2022

I am a fashion photographer who specialises in photographing editorials, sportswear and studio based work. As a recent graduate of BA (Hons) Photography at USW, I am excited to further discover, develop and share work based on my perception of the world and individuals.

Since discovering an ongoing curiosity about how individuals are affected by and interact with the world, I tend to experiment with emotionally driven, performative photography which brings fresh quirky imagery to the fashion industry. With a keen, creative eye for colour and detail, I fabricate imagery through a playful, contemporary view.

Jack Winbow

Posted on November 07, 2022

Predominately photographing myself, I explore the strict boundaries the gender binary cements in both the zeitgeist and history. As a queer person who was assigned male at birth. Gender, expression and identity have always been considerable factors in my life. Using the format of self portrait, I communicate and establish my personal journey with gender and the emotions and moods the notion of binary creates. Highlighting my own personal struggle and on going quest to understand my own perceived gender, I aim to give insight into the ideology of a queer person.

Ed Worthington

Posted on November 07, 2022

Ed Worthington has lived in and around Cardiff his entire life. He photographs in the medium of 120 and 35mm film as he believes one of the most important aspects of photography is to document a snapshot of our short time in this world and leave behind a tangible record for future generations to discover.

He finds influence in minimalism and the literary concept of Magical Realism where the fantastical and normal co-exist. His project “It’s Allright Around Here, Isn’t it?” is an attempt to combine these by capturing the landscape of a changing city while at the same time subscribing to the idea that below the surface, there is a beauty that can be found in banality.

Dione Jones

Posted on November 07, 2022

Dione Jones is a South Wales based mixed media artist who works predominantly with photography and self-portraiture. Jones’ work often explores the “self” frequently concerning themes of gender performance, identity, body and change through their own perspective and experience as a nonbinary, queer artist.

Billy H. Osborn

Posted on November 07, 2022

Billy H. Osborn is a documentary photographer from Lincolnshire, England. By interweaving a variety of subject matter – including portraiture, landscapes and still lifes – Billy attempts to represent personal and communal notions of identity. The photographer’s practice is defined by an emotional, intuitive approach to making long-term projects within the British landscape.

Billy’s work is influenced by several mediums and genres: classic novels, music, films, American road photography and the British documentary tradition. In 2022, Billy graduated from the University of South Wales with a BA (Hons) in Documentary Photography.

Alice Durham

Posted on November 07, 2022

Alice Durham is a documentary photographer from Hertfordshire. Durham’s work stems from her interest in psychology and anthropology, as she explores the
suffocation of emotions specifically looking at her experience with addiction and eating disorders. Her work explores how photography can help us make sense of ourselves and others, specifically as a form of therapy. She has an intuitive approach to image making, documenting chance encounters and more intimate moments from her life. Durham uses metaphors to portray inner conflicts and shared sensations of the world, with the aim of furthering understanding of the human condition.

Ada Marino

Posted on November 07, 2022

Ada Marino is an Italian visual artist based in Wales. Her practice focuses above all on the recollection of past events, memories and traumas that re-emerge, passing by a deep canal of introspection, manifesting a cynical surrealism. Her works are represented under an individual combination of photography and installations.Often her disturbing imagery attempts to conceptualise the repulsion/attraction effect and tries to introduce the concept of revaluation of ugliness, almost contemplating it . She creates a variance with the ‘insubstantial’ aesthetic photography form subverting the common way to photograph, see and perceive things, celebrating the beauty in the truth and imperfections of life.

Anthony Jones

Posted on October 24, 2022

My name is Anthony Jones and I am a documentary photographer. My work focuses mainly on Welsh culture, from music to sports, Wales and rural/everyday life. I like to show passion, people in the moment, people in an everyday setting as well as environmental issues.

I studied photography in USW and Cardiff Met where I discovered a love of Documentary photography.

Bronwen Colquhoun

Posted on October 05, 2022

Dr. Bronwen Colquhoun is Senior Curator of Photography at Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales. She curates the exhibition programme for the Museum’s permanent photography gallery as well as contributing to temporary exhibition programmes and gallery displays. She previously worked as Assistant Curator of Photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum and holds a PhD in Museum and Gallery Studies from Newcastle University. At Amgueddfa Cymru, Bronwen has curated photography exhibitions including Swaps: Photographs from the David Hurn Collection, Women in Focus, ARTIST ROOMS: August Sander, Bernd and Hilla Becher: Industrial Visions and Môrwelion/The Sea Horizon: Garry Fabian Miller.

Walter Waygood

Posted on August 02, 2022

Walter Waygood (b. 1956) was brought up in Wales and began his photographic career using an old fashioned large format mahogany and brass Gandolfi camera. Photography was used to provide a commentary of working class life during the 1970s. His interest in photography as a form of social commentary led him to make more political statements through his pictures during the miners’ strike of the 1980’s. He graduated in BA Fine Art at Newport, and MA in Cardiff, and worked as a community artist in Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda, Aberdare and Pontypridd during the 1980s/early 90s. For twenty years he was Head of Art at Brockenhurst College in Hampshire, before returning to Dowlais in 2015, where he continues to live and work.

David Barnes

Posted on August 01, 2022

David Barnes’ ‘expanded’ documentary practice moves seamlessly between the still and moving image. For over 20 years, his work has centred on ‘small nation’ communities, family and identity in Europe (with a particular focus on South Wales). Although grounded in documentary, his work is intended to be what he characterises as a ‘conversation’ rather than a singular representation of people and place. The artist has exhibited widely in the UK and Europe, including in Germany, Poland, France and Italy. Winner of the Photographic Award in Wales Artist of the Year 2013. Senior Lecturer in Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales and PhD researcher with the European Centre for Photography.

Arturas Valiauga

Posted on August 01, 2022

Arturas Valiauga (b. 1967) lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania. His work deals with themes of social identity and the passing of time. Valiauga graduated from Vilnius College of Technologies and Design and went on to gain a Masters degree in Photography and Media Art at Vilnius Art Academy. Since 1992 he has been a member of the Union of Lithuanian Art Photographers and in 2003 he established Fotoprojektai, the first studio of advertising photography in Lithuania. The artist is represented by Eglė Deltuvaitė at the Lithuanian organisation Culture Menu.

Jana Romanova

Posted on July 30, 2022

Jana Romanova is a documentary photographer and artist based in St Petersburg. Working with photography, performance and video installation, Romanova’s work seeks to define and question our understandings of nationality, family and relationships. Winner of several international prizes and awards, her long-term documentary projects have been selected for a number of international exhibitions and festivals such as Encontros da Imagem (Braga, Portugal), the Backlight Festival (Tampere, Finland), Encuentros Abietros Festival (Buenos Aires, Argentina) Perchance to Dream at Andrea Meislin Gallery (New York, USA), New Saint-Petersburg at Nieuw Dakota Gallery (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Me, myself and I by Anzenberger Gallery (Vienna, Austria).

Yan White

Posted on July 19, 2022

Yan White is the Director of The Queer Emporium, a Social Enterprise on St Mary’s St that sells on behalf of around 20 LGBTQ+ vendors. The first of its kind, The Queer Emporium also platforms events for different parts of the LGBTQ+ Community, including nights to help those who are trans, intersex and gender non conforming as well as QIPOC. This year the Social Enterprise also started The Queer Fringe Festival which aims to platform and pay as many queer artists as possible.

Norena Shopland

Posted on July 19, 2022

Norena Shopland is an author/historian specialising in the history of sexual orientation and gender identity. Her book Forbidden Lives: LGBT stories from Wales (Seren Books, 2017) is the first entirely historical work on Welsh LGBTQ+ history. Queering Glamorgan and A Practical Guide to Searching LGBTQIA Historical Records (Routledge, 2020) have become very popular as toolkits to aid people in doing research. Shopland also researches and writes on Welsh history including her book The Curious Case of the Eisteddfod Baton and an exhibition and forthcoming book on the Tip Girls of Wales, women working in the coal industry. In 2021 Shopland was commissioned by the Welsh Government to deliver LGBTQ+ training to local libraries, museums, and archives in Wales. Her latest book is A History of Women in Men’s Clothes: from cross-dressing to empowerment (Pen and Sword Books, 2021).

Paris Tankard

Posted on July 19, 2022

Paris Tankard is an award winning photographer and recent graduate from the University of South Wales, their work focuses around social issues and promoting positive changes within our communities, including working as a protest photographer and with non profit organisations, with their most recent project exploring the lives of queer people of colour.

Joshua Jones

Posted on July 13, 2022

Joshua Jones (he/him) is a queer & autistic writer and artist from Llanelli, South Wales. He is the co-founder and director of Dyddiau Du, a NeuroQueer social hub and centre for art & literature in the heart of Cardiff. He has been published by Poetry Wales, Broken Sleep Books, and Nawr Magazine, and has been commended by The Poetry Society. He has been twice shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Short Story Prize, and his debut collection of short stories, Local Fires, will be published by Parthian, November 2023. He is currently project leading a collaborative writing project between queer Welsh & Vietnamese writers, as part of the British Council's Season in Viet Nam.

Reg Arthur

Posted on July 13, 2022

Reg Arthur (also known as Hunk Williams) is a queer multimedia artist and absurdist whose work explores themes of pop culture, counter culture, and chaos. His work aims to make sense of the world by harking back to kitschy and campy icons of the past. He works as part of SPAF Collective to produce a range of queer badges, stickers and zines.

Lisa Power

Posted on July 13, 2022

Lisa Power is a Cardiff dyke who's been around for donkeys' years. She came out in the 1970s, spent 14 years with (Gay) Switchboard and 17 with Terrence Higgins Trust. In between she was a co-founder of Stonewall and the Pink Paper, Secretary General of ILGA, the first queer person to speak for our rights at the UN in 1991 and wrote the definitive oral history of the London Gay Liberation Front. She is currently a Trustee of Queer Britain, the new museum and a co-creator of Fast Track Cymru, the HIV coalition aiming to end new cases of HIV in Wales by 2030. She talks a lot about queer history and encourages people to make more of it for themselves and future generations.

Alun Davies

Posted on July 13, 2022

Alun Davies uses photography and video to document portraits and landscapes of archetypes and architecture of queer bodies in spaces. These marginalised bodies and liminal architectural spaces are Affective Archive's as reconstructions of memory and virtual co-mingling transcending time through empathy and community presented in a virtual 3D space.

Robert Oros

Posted on July 13, 2022

Robert Oros (he/him), born in Romania, is a photographer, video artist and curator based in Cardiff. His artistic practice explores different socio-political themes with an emphasis on minorities, with current projects focusing on the refugee crisis and the LGBTQ+ community. The work observes individual representations during periods of upheaval.

Aaron Lowe

Posted on June 27, 2022

Aaron Lowe is a non-binary, Cardiff based photographer. With a keen interest in capturing every day beauty, their journey with photography has taught them the duality of both split second moments of wonder but also the beauty of patience and what that can bring to an image. Now an event photographer, they love to blend into the shadows and show the world through their eyes while always immersing themselves into the true feeling of their surroundings.

Dafydd Williams

Posted on June 24, 2022

Emerging Swansea-based artist Dafydd Williams is interested in symbolism and technique in renaissance paintings, primarily by the Masters Michelangelo and Caravaggio, which are used to critique contemporary gender and sexual structures.

Rosy Martin

Posted on June 24, 2022

Rosy Martin is an artist-photographer, psychological therapist, workshop leader, lecturer and writer. She explores the relationships between photography, memory, identities and unconscious processes using self-portraiture, still life photography, digital imaging and video. Through embodiment, she discerns the psychic and social construction of identities within the drama of the everyday.

John Paul Evans

Posted on April 25, 2022

John Paul Evans is a Welsh-born photographic artist and academic who now lives in Devon, England. His work explores the polemics of gender representation in photography. He has received various international awards including the 2016 Hasselblad Masters Award. He was winner of the Dodho Magazine B&W Award 2017, KL Photo awards 2017, Bokeh Bokeh portfolio awards 2017 & 2018, Pride Photo Awards 2014.

Nelly Ating

Posted on April 19, 2022

Nelly Ating is a photojournalist who focuses on questions of identity, education, extremism, and migration. As a photojournalist, her work has been published in local dailies in Nigeria and legacy media such as the BBC and CNN. Her photographic work documenting the rise of Boko Haram terrorism between 2014 and 2020 in Northeast Nigeria shone a light on the aftermath of violent extremism. Ating has exhibited at galleries and photographic festivals in Africa, Europe and the US, as well as judged and reviewed photography competitions such as African Women in Media (AWiM) and Ugandan Press Photo Awards. She is a member of Women Photograph, Black Women Photographers, African Women in Photography, the Journal Collective, and African Database for Photojournalists run by the World Press Photo. She is currently a PhD candidate at Cardiff University researching the discourse of human rights through photography.

Iko-Ono Mercy Haruna

Posted on April 19, 2022

Iko-Ọjọ Mercy Haruna, known as Mercy, is a visual artist and documentary photographer dedicated to capturing the fleeting moments of family life and stories that dive deeper into the realities and complexities of motherhood. Her latest project, Offspring aims to create space for Black mothers in the UK to share their stories related to the physical and psychological changes that come with the transition into motherhood.

Alongside her photographic practice, she’s a parenting writer and podcaster and has worked on a number of projects including co-hosting BBC World Service’s Parentland - an evidence-based podcast that investigates parenting questions through the lens of scientific research and global cultural practices.

Mercy was born and raised in Nigeria, spent her teens in France and moved to the UK to pursue a BA in Visual Communication and MA in Photography. She currently lives in Kent with her family.

Ian Smith

Posted on March 08, 2022

Ian Smith is a queer filmmaker based in Cardiff, Wales. He studied film at Newport Film School, where he was influenced by renowned documentary filmmaker John Grierson, the school’s Patron.

Ian went on to become a producer and director at BBC Wales where he produced a variety of formats, films and documentaries including Wales and Hollywood, How The Co-op Started, Homelessness: On the Edge. Ian also worked on drama formats including Doctor Who, War of the Worlds, Mistresses amongst many others. He continues to work for the BBC as a freelancer on current affairs, factual and music output. He also produces films through his company Auntie Margaret. His recent films GO HOME POLISH and THREE LETTERS were selected for Best of British at IRIS PRIZE 2020 and 2021 and are currently playing out on Channel 4 in the UK.

Naz Syed

Posted on March 08, 2022

Naz Syed is known as Newport’s Bohemian Mary Poppins, with her travelling workshops and suitcases spreading creativity and kindness. She is Director of Ziba Creative, a socially engaged visual artist and creative consultant. Working with others is a driving force of her practise, connecting people and their stories, wellbeing and building confidence through creativity. She uses different art forms including; textiles, sculpture, fashion, mixed media and collage. Naz is passionate about supporting the arts the heart of the community, with over 20 years of experience. She has created a visual community time capsule with ‘Lost Connections’ and Art Clwb workshops and packs to support creativity in the community.

John Crerar

Posted on March 08, 2022

Born in London in 1957, John Crerar is a documentary photographer, film maker and lecturer based in Newport, South Wales. His work has been widely exhibited over the past two decades and has been collected by a number of institutions including The National Library of Wales. His photographic work shows a keen interest in subjects that are associated with the development of the post- industrial landscapes of South Wales.

Having retired from teaching in July 2014 John has since worked on a series of projects including the publication of a book featuring the old cinema buildings of South Wales and the development of an exhibition entitled ‘The Rookery’, which was shown at the Futures Gallery, Pierhead Building in Cardiff Bay in May 2019.

In July 2019 John received a research and development grant from the Arts Council of Wales to develop his current project Lions & Unicorns.

João Saramago

Posted on March 08, 2022

Wales based Portuguese artist originally from Lisbon, now based in Cardiff.

His creative practice explores ideas of vulnerability and endurance through film, photography, performance, drawing and site specific installations.

He creates playful, meaningful & sustainable work utilising the Welsh landscape, his new home, to reflect on the acts of human’s corruptive behaviour and its long term impact on the environment.

Mymuna Soleman

Posted on February 14, 2022

Mymuna is Somali-Welsh graduate from Cardiff Metropolitan University completing both her

degrees, a BSc in Health and Social Care and an MSc in Applied Public Health in 2014 and 2016.

Mymuna is an activist, a poet and community champion for all issues relating to equality, diversity, race and white privilege and how people can use their privilege for good.

More recently Mymuna founded the Privilege cafe, an important and timely virtual space founded and grounded on the back of creating a safe space where voices that have been marginalised and othered for so long were now welcomed and included, respected, and listened to. Mymuna has hosted a number of successful virtual sessions since starting the Café in 2020 attracting over 5,000 people and has covered a wide range of topics with the focus of uplifting marginalised voices.

She has a huge passion for community engagement, empowering community voices, but most importantly ensuring that authentic relationships are created with policy makers to influence positive change. Mymuna hopes that this role will enable her to transfer the skills she has gained in community engagement and to build positive meaningful relationships and connections between communities and decision makers.

Inès Elsa Dalal

Posted on February 14, 2022

Inès Elsa Dalal is an artist and educator from Birmingham, currently based in London.

Dalal specialises in documentary photography and the ethics of portraiture.

She is committed to confronting systemic injustice, such as racism and xenophobia.

Born in Nottingham (1990) to a Swiss, Italian mother and a German, Parsi (Iranian-Indian) father; her own mixed heritage informs the tenderness with which she approaches portrait sitters and the communities co-creates with.

Solo exhibition 'Here To Stay' was commissioned by the NHS just before the Windrush Scandal and has been touring the UK since 2018, despite the ongoing pandemic.

Dalal also tutors nationally and lectures internationally.

Robert Law

Posted on February 14, 2022

Panel Discussion

Rob Law is a documentary photographer based on Ynys Môn/Anglesey.

His practice concerns documentary photography, capturing both rural and urban environments and the people within them. With so many landscape images being produced in North Wales as a whole, Rob feels that it’s important to show that this is also a place where people need to live and work. He founded The North Wales Project in 2019 to encourage and show the best documentary photography in the region. He has contributed several images in both the book and exhibition.

Nicola Heywood-Thomas

Posted on February 14, 2022

Moderator - panel discussion

Nicola has three decades of broadcasting experience in a wide range of fields. She began her career in BBC Wales straight from university as a news researcher and subsequently worked for the Wales Today programme as a sub-editor, reporter and presenter.

She joined ITV Wales as a senior reporter and presenter and, for eighteen years, was the station’s main female news anchor. Nicola was the presenter of major live outside broadcasts, including the 1997 Assembly referendum and the first ever National Assembly election results programme. She also presented and produced features and current affairs programmes for the station, winning a BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Music Programme.

Nicola’s radio experience is similarly varied as she has presented news & current affairs programmes, a daily phone-in and many programmes on the arts for BBC Radio Wales. She has also presented a series on Radio 4 and works regularly for BBC Radio 3, broadcasting live concerts.

Zara Mader

Posted on February 11, 2022

Zara Mader a mixed race Welsh photographer and a fan of punk. Her previous work includes a project that was a response to the place Poly Styrene held in punk, linking it to her position as a photographic artist in Wales.

“Because we share the same ethnic mix I am interested in what role race played in the choices Poly Styrene made in successfully pursuing a career in punk, and whether social class had more of an effect on her choice of career. I am equally interested in her enduring influence on women today. Even though her colouring marked her out as different as did her choice of clothing in punk, she represents a group of the British population – being mixed race - that is growing in number, so I want to question what being British looks like.”

Edgar Martins

Posted on February 04, 2022

Edgar Martins was born in Évora (Portugal) but grew up in Macau (China), where he published his first novel entitled Mãe deixa-me fazer o pino. In 1996 he moved to the UK, where he completed a BA in Photography and Social Sciences at the University of the Arts, as well as an MA in Photography Fine Art at the Royal College of Art (London).

His work is represented internationally in several high-profile collections.

Edgar Martins has exhibited extensively at institutions such as PS1 MoMA (New York), MOPA (San Diego, USA), Centro de Arte Moderna (Lisbon), MAAT (Lisbon), CIAJG (Guimarães, Portugal), Centro Cultural Hélio Oiticica (Rio de Janeiro), The New Art Gallery Walsall (Walsall, UK), The Gallery of Photography (Dublin), Ffotogallery (Penarth, Wales),Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), Leicester New Walk Museum, The Herbert Museum & Art Gallery, the Geneva Photography Centre, among many others.

In 2010 the Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian (Paris) hosted Edgar Martins’ first retrospective exhibition.

Edgar Martins was the recipient of the inaugural New York Photography Award (Fine Art category, May 2008), the BES Photo Prize (Portugal, 2009), the SONY World Photography Award (2009; 2018), 1st prize in the Fine Art— Abstract category of the 2010 International Photography Awards, 1st prize in the Hangar Centre’s European Photography Call 2020 and nominated for the Prix Pictet 2009 as well as the Meitar Award for Excellence in Photography in 2020 & 2021.

His first book—Black Holes & Other Inconsistencies—was awarded the Thames & Hudson and RCA Society Book Art Prize. A selection of images from this book was also awarded The Jerwood Photography Award in 2003.

Edgar Martins' What Photography & Incarceration have in Common with an Empty Vase was shortlisted for the Paris Photo & Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards as well as PhotoEspaña Book Awards in 2020.

He was selected to represent Macau (China) at the 54th Venice Biennale.

Justin Quinnell

Posted on January 31, 2022

Justin Quinnell is one of the world’s experts in pinhole photography and camera obscuras, which he has practiced and taught worldwide for over 30 years.
His work includes: ‘Mouthpiece’ – inter mouth images, ‘Slow Light’, 6 month exposures and the proudly gruesome ‘Awfullogrammes’. As well as lecturing throughout the UK, he is an associate lecturer at Falmouth University and a founding director of the Real Photography Company, a community darkroom in his home town of Bristol.

His practice has taken him from Australia and NZ to Europe and the US where he was pinhole photography consultant for the Rachel Weisz – Mark Ruffalo movie ‘The Brothers Bloom’ . TV appearances include: The One show, Jonathan Ross Show, Blue Peter, Radio 4 ‘Today’,‘Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom’ and ‘George Clarkes Amazing Spaces’. He has had four books published most recently the text book ‘Discovering Light’.
He also assists and promotes both ‘World Pinhole Day’ and the Experimental Photography Festival which occurs annually in Barcelona.

Paul Sng

Posted on January 10, 2022

Paul Sng is a biracial British Chinese filmmaker and writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland, whose work is driven by methodical research, creative storytelling and a collaborative approach that strives for inclusivity and diversity in people and projects. In 2015, Paul founded Velvet Joy Productions to explore the lives and work of individuals who have been neglected, marginalised or misrepresented in the arts and media. Paul's documentaries have been broadcast on national television and screened internationally and include Sleaford Mods – Invisible Britain (2015), Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle (2017), Social Housing, Social Cleansing (2018) and Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché (2021).

Abby Poulson

Posted on December 15, 2021

Abby Poulson is a photographic artist born and raised in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Employing cameraless techniques, alternative processes, installation and sculpture, Abby uses her process broadly and experimentally to explore ideas surrounding her homeland, whilst also responding to

Welsh identity, environmental concerns, the rural, memory and place. Abby is also a practicing curator and creative producer, and has been exhibited and published throughout Wales and the United Kingdom.

Gilbert Sabiti

Posted on December 15, 2021

I’m a Multi-disciplinary freelance graphic designer based in Bristol. Much of my practice is driven by content and narrative. Storytelling is essentially the core of my creativity and is mostly inspired by world issues. I use editorial and type to deliver content mostly in the format of zines.

Chelagat

Posted on December 15, 2021

Chelagat was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1992.

She works primarily in the medium of painting; acrylics on canvas and paper.

She also uses aerosol paints and digital illustrations in her expressions.

Professional Background

Chelagat attained her Bachelors degree at the University of Nairobi in 2015, where she studied design and majored in Illustration.

She has exhibited some of her pieces at the Alliance Francaise Nairobi, Subtopia studios in Sweden, Kerry Civic Parker gallery in Australia, Logale house in Juba, The Baobab house in Juba, the Bega kwa Bega arts collective in Babadogo, Ibuka in the Univeristy and for street art the walls of Kerry Civic parker gallery in Australia, Uganda National Museum Kitintale skating park (Kampla), mamba in Kigali, Jericho, Eastleigh and many more.

The main themes that she tackles are on culture,
spritualism and identity. She makes use of symbolism, colour and patterns to set the tone of each painting.

Paul Cabuts

Posted on November 05, 2021

Paul Cabuts is an Honorary Research Fellow at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales and former Director of the Institute of Photography at Falmouth University. He completed his PhD at the European Centre for Photographic Research and the University of Wales Press published his monograph Creative Photography and Wales. He has photographed in Wales over several decades and his work has been exhibited and published nationally and internationally.

Tarun Bhartiya

Posted on November 04, 2021

Tarun Bhartiya is a Maithil documentary image-maker, Hindi poet and political activist based in Shillong, Khasi Hills, India. His photographs and image essays have been published in magazines and as covers of many books.

Tarun Bhartiya's films include Brief Life of Insects (2015, MIFF, Best Sound Award), The Last Train in Nepal (2015, BBC4, RTS award for Best Director, Factual), Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (Royal Television Society Award, Best documentary series 2010), Tourist Information for Shillong (2007) as well as music videos for several Shillong bands.

As an editor he has worked on notable films with filmmakers like Vasudha Joshi (Girl Song, 2003 and Cancer Katha Special Jury Award, National Awards 2012), Red Ant Dream (Editor & Co-Writer, Sanjay Kak, 2014), Jashn-e-Azadi (Sanjay Kak 2007). He returned his National Award for Best Editing for In Camera (Ranjan Palit 2010) in protest against the state fascism.

His poems and their translations have appeared in various anthologies including Dancing Earth: Contemporary poetry from North East India (Penguin).

He is a member of Thma U Rangli Juki (TUR), a progressive people's group in Meghalaya and part of RAIOT Webzine, www.raiot.in

Dipanwita Saha

Posted on November 04, 2021

Dipanwita Saha is an independent photographer based in Kolkata. Her interest in photography stems from her father. She completed her graduation in Software Engineering. Using personal and subjective modalities in her documentary practice, she explores the complexities of societal frameworks and dynamics of political institutions in contemporary India. Dipanwita's primary areas of interest are history, cultural narratives and socio-political changes. As part of her image-making practice, she likes to deploy the personal voices, metaphorical exploration and abstraction to unravel narratives of people, places and their histories.

Palani Kumar

Posted on November 04, 2021

Hailing from the village of Jawaharlalpuram in Madurai district, M Palani Kumar decided to pursue engineering as per the wish of his mother, a fish-seller. He graduated in B.E. In 2013, while he was still pursuing engineering, he applied for a loan and purchased his first camera.

He worked as a cinematographer for the critically acclaimed documentary Kakoos? a searing narrative on the lives of manual scavengers in Tamil Nadu. In a couple of years, Palani opened his first photography exhibition in Chennai, featuring photographs clicked by the children of manual scavengers, who were trained through Palani's workshops. As a fellow of PARI, Palani is currently documenting the working-class women.

Palani is associated with Pep Collective - a form of socially responsible photographers in Tamil Nadu. He was recognized as Top Ten Humans 2019 by Anandha Vikatan for his socially impactful work through the years. In March 2020, he received the Best Story of the Year - 2020 award from the Public Relations Council of India.

He attempts to sensitize the work of manual scavengers to an otherwise de-sensitized world and hopes to continue using his art form to throw light on the marginalized communities.

Huw Alden Davies

Posted on November 04, 2021

Born and raised in Carmarthenshire, Wales, Documentary Photographer Huw Alden Davies explores the lines of visual and written narratives, studying concepts such as sense of place and cultural identity. His work has been widely published, and featured in a large number of international exhibitions, with selected works in the permanent archives of the National Library of Wales, National Museum of Wales, and The National Portrait Gallery, London.

Lured by the single frame and its ability to tell the grandest tales, Davies turns his attention largely to his homeland to tell its story. This has seen his photographs selected by renowned Magnum photographer Martin Parr, The Association of Photographers, and The National Museum of Wales. Supported by the Arts Council of Wales, The British Council, and Ffotogallery (the national agency of photography), Davies’ work has recently gone on to represent Wales in a number shows including Many Voices One Nation (Senedd), Imagining the Nation State (Chennai), and previous delegation in India.

Sebastián Bustamante

Posted on November 04, 2021

Sebastián is a British-Chilean artist-photographer, curator and researcher based in Abergavenny and Birmingham. Sebastian has exhibited in various venues in the UK including in London, Essex and Bristol and has had his photography published in news media. He has also had his research on art published in academic journals and online academic blogs. Sebastian’s principal research focuses are on memory, place, archives, and identity. Sebastián worked at the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America from 2015-2018 where he researched and taught on art from Latin America as well as curated displays and exhibitions. In 2006 Sebastián began a longitudinal transnational project exploring his identity and the legacies of dictatorships in Latin America utilising archival materials and his photography, incorporating his scholarship on the interstice between art, memory, and activism in his project El Otoño.

Hugh Thomas

Posted on November 04, 2021

Hugh is the founder of My Future My Choice and is the creator of multidisciplinary educational programmes that boost confidence and inspire young people to think about their future. He has led education initiatives for local and national government, run an arts company and public arts events, worked in secondary schools and has established community projects and charities. He is the Director of Education activities for The Bristol Initiative Trust as well as the MV Balmoral Trust, an historic Passenger Vessel.

Mike Bryan

Posted on November 04, 2021

Mike spent 30 years working for ITV Wales in various broadcast and technology management roles. Officially retired, he continues carries out some freelance broadcasting work on a part-time basis. He is also a Board Member at RCTCAB (Rhondda Cynon Taf Citizens Advice Bureau) and Too Good to Waste in Ynyshir.

David Massey

Posted on November 04, 2021

David is a Digital Producer and Curator for Welsh National Opera, whose remit is to produce digital installations that capture compelling, creative and innovative stories for the promotion and celebration of classical theatre and music. Before joining WNO, David worked at the BBC in online broadcast and production.

Angharad Evans

Posted on November 04, 2021

Angharad is a consultant film and television lawyer advising businesses of all sizes from start-ups to internationally recognised brands in connection with all aspects of film and television production and financing. Before becoming a consultant she was Head of S4C’s Legal and Business Affairs Department and worked in the specialist Film and Media team at SJ Berwin, London. She advises on co-productions, distribution, multi-party financing arrangements, rights agreements, option agreements and clearances. The Legal 500 and Chambers publications recognises her as a Leading Individual in Media Law in Wales.

Philippa Haughton

Posted on November 04, 2021

Philippa is a social researcher, working at the Office for National Statistics. Her training is in History, and she has published on twentieth century British history, the emergence of the creative industries, women in advertising, and the postwar economy. Before she joined ONS, she taught Economic History at Cardiff University.

Deian Jones

Posted on November 04, 2021

Deian is Managing Director at Hodge Lifetime in Cardiff, and responsible for all aspects of the development of the business, with a particular focus on product design, customer outcomes and strategy. In his time with the Hodge group, he has held a variety of strategic, risk and project roles. He is a chartered accountant, and spent eight years in KPMG’s financial services audit practice, specialising in the retail financial services and life assurance sectors.

Jack Arthur

Posted on November 04, 2021

Jack has spent over 5 years working in Financial Services and Fintech. He has held various roles in business development, strategy and digital innovation. Jack is currently based in Paris and works for the French comparison portal Lelynx.fr and is responsible for all aspects of business development. Before that he worked in the UK for Confused.com and Admiral Group. Jack is also part of the creative network at Arts & Business Cymru.

Emily Harris

Posted on November 04, 2021

Mathew Talfan

Posted on November 04, 2021

Mathew is Head of Strategy at Severn Screen, one of Wales leading film and TV production companies. He has a background in the creative and cultural industries that covers broadcasting, advertising, design, visual and performing arts and higher education. He was also cofounder of Photomarathon UK, the annual photographic event which took place in Cardiff between 2004 and 2015 and is a Fellow of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.

Steven Chikosi

Posted on November 03, 2021

Steven Chikosi is a documentary photographer and Filmmaker from Zimbabwe. Steven is on a mission to tell stories of the daily life of Africans.

Wafaa Samir

Posted on November 03, 2021

Wafaa Samir (b.1990) is a photographer and visual artist who lives and works in Cairo. Her work explores two main tracks; our relationships with urbanism and physical spaces, and a figurative representation of emotions and states of mind. She alternates her attention between these outer and inner worlds, approaching each very differently.

Samir earned her Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo in 2013. In parallel she nurtured her interest in photography and actively showcased in many group exhibitions In Cairo, Germany, Belgium, France and Dubai.

Tom Saater

Posted on November 03, 2021

Tom Saater is a documentary photographer, film-maker and podcast producer from Nigeria. His work is focused on contemporary social issues, like immigration, the economy, and humanitarianism. His work has been exhibited internationally, including in the Venice Biennale, University of Oxford, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Denmark, and as part of the EverydayAfrica traveling exhibitions across the world and at the LOOK3 Festival and Addis Foto Festival, Lagos Photo, among others. He’s worked for International media outlets and organisations including The Economist, Google, Washington Post, New York Times, TIME, Zeit Germany, State secretariat for Immigration Switzerland, Huffington Post, Financial Times, Lufthansa, The Telegraph UK, Japan Times, Bloomberg, BBC, Human Rights Watch, Mercedes Benz, IFC, UNHCR, WFP, UN/OCHA, Oxfam, Catalyst for Peace, Canon Europe, Big Dutchman Germany, International Rescue Committee, Mercy corps. In 2018, he was invited to facilitate a storytelling photography workshop at Contact Photography Festival in Toronto and give a talk about his work at the Bronx Documentary Centre in New York. He is a member and contributor to the photography collective Everyday Africa.

Yoriyas Yassine Alaoui

Posted on November 03, 2021

Yoriyas Yassine Alaoui, also known as Yoriyas, is a Casablanca-based photographer and performing artist.

Yoriyas’s work is often an intuitively-based observation of urban/public-space and a documentation of daily life and change. His images have been featured in The New York Times and National Geographic. He has received several awards, including the award Les Amis de l’Institut du Monde Arabe for Contemporary Arab Creation 2019 and the 7th Contemporary African Photography at Photo Basel 2018.

He has been exhibited across the world, including in the HERMÈS Foundation in Paris, 836m Gallery in San Francisco, and he curated ‘Sourtna’, the inaugural exhibition of Morocco’s National-Museum-of-Photography in Rabat.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Yoriyas was selected by The New York Times as one of the ‘artists to follow’ and received the COVID-19 Emergency Fund from National Geographic.

Fatoumata Diabaté

Posted on November 03, 2021

Born in 1980 in Mali, Fatoumata Diabaté has been invited to many festivals around the world and has won several awards. She takes part in the Rencontres photographiques de Bamako", the "La Gallicy" photo festival, the Rencontres d’Arles and the Biennale de Dakar. Her work is the subject of several group and individual exhibitions in Mali, France and internationally. In her youth, she was Malick Sidibé’s assistant and in 2013, she creates ‘Le Studio Photo de la Rue, a traveling photo studio which is invited by many cultural spaces and festivals, The Cartier Foundation in Paris in particular. She has been exhibited in various galleries, more recently the 31Project Gallery in South Africa. She has been named 2020 laureate of the Photographic Residences of Quai Branly Museum whose project has just been carried out in Mali and around excision. She divides her time between Montpellier in France and Bamako in Mali.

Brian Otieno

Posted on November 03, 2021

Brian Otieno is deeply committed to sharing stories from his community and his country that rarely make it into the international news. Since 2013, Brian has dedicated his time and energy to bring to light the unseen side of his hometown – Kibera often portrayed as a place of poverty, violence, and disease. Through his project Kibera Stories, he focuses his lenses on a broader spectrum of life where hope, resilience, ambition and a sense of community prevail. Brian is committed to depolarizing and humanizing the traditional narrative that distorts how underprivileged communities are perceived and defined.

Maheder Haileselassie Tadese

Posted on November 03, 2021

Maheder Haileselassie Tadese (b.1990) is a photographer based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Her inspiration to photograph comes from the history, identity, memories of her own and of people she engages with everyday.

She has been accepted to prestigious programs such as New York Times Portfolio review 2019 and World Press Photo Masterclass East Africa and has made a presentation at RAY Festival, Germany, 2018.

She is also a contributor for @everydayafrica on Instagram and has recently founded Center for Photography in Ethiopia (CPE), a learning and discussion platform for Ethiopian Photographers.

Maheder has been working for wires and major news organizations such as AFP, Reuters, Getty Images, Le Monde and Der Spiegel. Maheder recently curated the photography exhibition titled Baxxe:Home and has also co-edited a photography publication titled Against Gravity. Her works has been shown in numerous exhibitions around the world.

Sarah Waiswa

Posted on November 03, 2021

Sarah Waiswa is Ugandan-born, Kenya-based documentary and portrait photographer with an interest in exploring the New African Identity on the continent. With degrees in sociology and psychology, Sarah’s work explores social issues in Africa in a contemporary and non-traditional way. In 2015, she was awarded first place in the story and creative categories in the Uganda Press Photo Awards and second place in the Daily Life and portrait categories. In 2016 she was awarded the Discovery Award in Arles, France and in 2017 she was awarded the Gerald Kraak Award in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2018, she was named a Canon Brand Ambassador and was selected for the World Press Photo 6×6 Africa Program. Her work has been exhibited around the world, most recently at the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia. Her work will be exhibited at the Bristol Photo Festival 2021 in collaboration with the Bristol Archives. Her photographs have been published in the Washington Post, Bloomberg, the New York Times, among other publications. Earlier this year she founded African Women in Photography, a non-profit organization dedicated to elevating and celebrating the work of women and non-binary photographers from Africa.

Nana Kofi Acquah

Posted on November 03, 2021

My name is Nana Kofi Acquah. I was born in Elmina, Ghana; 200 metres from where the first slave castle was built in sub-saharan Africa. I grew up in Tema and Accra, and at age 12, I fell in love with poetry, and painting shortly after. I discovered photography when I worked in advertising. I took off as a commercial photographer but quickly realised I could do more with my photographs than sell soap and sex. Today, I consider myself a voice that’s helping change the stereotypical image of Africa, one story at a time.

Jacques Nkinzingabo

Posted on November 03, 2021

NKINZINGABO is a DJ, Music Producer and self-taught photographer born and based in Kigali. He founded Kwanda Art Foundation with the aim to build the photography community in Rwanda by establishing, educating, improving their knowledge and to promote the art Industry and community in Rwanda and in national and international contexts.

He established the Kigali Center for Photography, both a gallery and a training space to enable exchange, reflection, meeting, listening and the practice and development of new work.

His work focuses on cultural diversity, migration, memories and identity issues and he has been exhibited worldwide.

Salih Basheer

Posted on November 03, 2021

Salih Basheer (born January 1995) is a Sudanese freelance storyteller / photographer concentrating on social issues. Salih covered the revolutions in Sudan and the waves of protest after the sit-in breakup in Khartoum. His photography has since developed more into long-term projects.

Salih moved to Cairo in 2013 and received his Bachelor Degree in Geography from Cairo University in 2017.Salih’s passion for photography began in 2016, where it helped him rediscover himself and gave him a voice and language to fully express himself through the visual language of photography. Moreover, living in Cairo played a vital role in his journey as a photographer.

Amina Kadous

Posted on November 03, 2021

Amina Kadous (b.1991) is a visual artist exploring concepts of memory, based in Cairo, Egypt. She believes in the ephemerality of experience. “Nothing lasts. Documentation of experiences, of the objects and moments of the physical world only lasts when it is passed on.” Characterising herself as an explorer of ideas, she is driven by the spirit of inquiry as she seeks to comprehend the meanings and hidden ambiguities of lives, not her own, through the interactive nature of viewer, photographer, object and environment.

Amina has exhibited at numerous spaces internationally and locally. She is the recipient of AFAC documentary program for this year 2020-21. She participated in the twelfth edition of the Bamako Biennale of Photography and was awarded the Centre Soleil d’Afrique Prize for her project ‘A Crack in the Memory of My Memory’. She was recently a recipient of the Jury’s Special Mentions for the sixth edition of LCC Program, and her work is currently on view at MACAAL’s exhibition ‘Welcome Home Vol. II’.

Maryam Wahid

Posted on August 20, 2021

Maryam Wahid (b. 1995) is an award-winning freelance artist whose work explores her identity as a British Pakistani Muslim woman. She expresses the origins of the Pakistani community in her hometown Birmingham (UK) by examining her deeply rooted family history; and the mass integration of migrants within the United Kingdom. Her academic background in Art, Photography and Religious Studies alongside her fascination in cultural cognition and religious ideologies have progressively influenced her work. Her work explores the female identity, the history of the South Asian community in Britain and the notion of home and belonging. She has been commissioned to create photographs for The Guardian, The Financial Times, Manchester Metropolitan University and The People’s Picture, among others.

Suzie Larke

Posted on June 22, 2021

Suzie Larke is a visual artist and photographer based in Cardiff, Wales, UK. Graduating with a degree in photography in 2002, she has since worked internationally as a commercial and portrait photographer.

Her fine art photography explores themes of identity, emotion, and mental health. Suzie is interested in representing an internal state rather than capturing a moment in time. She creates images that challenge our notion of reality – combining photographs to create an image that defies logic.

Robert Law

Posted on November 12, 2020

Rob Law is a documentary photographer based on Ynys Môn/Anglesey.

Since having a darkroom as a teenager, Rob has always had an interest in photography, but took to more committed work under the mentorship of photojournalist colleagues. Encouraged to work in terms of series, his work has included projects in diverse places like Glasgow, Nice, Ayr and more recently his home village of Llandegfan, under the initial coronavirus lockdown of 2020 which was subsequently published as a small book.

Robert is a contributor to Millennium Images, London and was shortlisted for Portrait of Britain 2019, the ESPY Awards 2019 and the British Photography Awards 2019. His work has been published in Creative Review and It’s Nice That, amongst others.

He founded The North Wales Project in 2019 to encourage and show the best documentary photography in the region.

Website | Instagram

Mohamed Hassan

Posted on November 12, 2020

Originally from Alexandria in Egypt, Mohamed Hassan has been living and working in Pembrokeshire, west Wales since 2007, and graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Photography from Carmarthen School of Art in 2016.

Living and studying in Wales has been pivotal to his journey as an artist. On exploring more of Wales, Mohamed found inspiration in the rugged landscapes around him. As a newcomer he has become captivated with its rich and artistic culture and language, steeped in ancient folklore and song – and has a continuing fascination in photographing people living and working in west Wales both outdoors in the natural environment of the area and in the studio.

Mohamed works in both black and white and colour, focusing on the mood and light of the scene. His work has subtle and subdued characteristics and aims to draw you into the image he is making, evoking an emotional response.

Mohamed has been shortlisted for several awards and competitions and his work has been exhibited at the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait exhibition in 2018 at the National Portrait Gallery in London, Elysium Swansea, Nova Cymru 2018, the prestigious Mission Gallery, the Waterfront National Museum in Wales and the Trajectory Showcase Competition Exhibition in Shoreditch, London.

Website | Instagram

Matthew Eynon

Posted on November 12, 2020

I am a Welsh photographer living in Wales and have been developing a series of work that has been self-funded and in progress since 2018.

My photography work and interests involve documenting people, contemporary society and subculture and have been doing this for the last few years alongside a role in the earth sciences. My hope is to break through as a recognised photographer and contribute to a record of contemporary culture.

Website | Instagram

Lucy Purrington

Posted on November 12, 2020

My work primarily explores themes of mental health through surreal self portraits. Drawing on personal experience, I attempt to externalise and transform my struggle with mental health into something tangible and relatable. The aim is to raise awareness, start conversations and bring mental health and wellbeing out of the shadows for all of us.

Photography fills the spaces that my dyslexia carves out and allows me to express and connect. It’s also proved to be fantastic for my wellbeing and that is something I’m keen to share with others. Self portraiture has formed a large part of my continued practice over several years but more recently I’ve moved towards sharing my craft through phone photography tutorials, presentation events, workshops and curating community activities - pre-pandemic of course!

In light of the local lockdowns and associated restrictions, in my most recent exhibition, Adlais / Echo, at The Workers Gallery in Ynyshir, which is in partnership fellow Rhondda dweller, Tracey Leonard, I’ve been learning about developing online and virtual strategies to engage with our local communities. It is this malleable and ever-evolving nature of photography that has reignited my enthusiasm over past years.

Photography aside, in true millennial style, I adore gardening and plant collecting.

Website | Instagram

Kaz Alexander

Posted on November 12, 2020

I was born on 31^st August, 1957 in Kent, to working class parents. Despite my parents’ relative poverty, I was given my first camera - an Iloca Rapide B from a bomb-sale - shortly after I was three years old. I used to take photos even though we couldn't always afford to have them developed!

I am, what is termed, well-educated - with a love of culture in all its aspects - and I have travelled extensively in my youth. I travelled overland to Iran, where I lived for several months, when I was seventeen (my Iloca travelled with me). I have lived and worked as a private English tutor in Germany. This is just as well, as I am now severely ill, disabled & housebound.

Having been seriously ill and disabled since 1982, I've learned the importance of at least trying to turn a negative into a positive; it is survival itself. I have lived in North Wales since 1985 and I now live in a reasonably remote area on Ynys Môn, seeing only carers & members of the District Nurses Team. I have no biological family remaining & my friends are scattered to the four winds; the latter I talk with via social media every day and I refer to them as my Global Family Of Friends - there isn't a day that goes by without someone telling me I'm loved, that I matter.

I have, in the past, had artwork exhibited in London; once in the Tate when I was at school, and once at St George’s The Art of Caring exhibition, and I once had two paintings on the reserve list at Plas Glyn Y Weddw Gallery.

This would seem to be me.

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John Manley

Posted on November 12, 2020

I was given the opportunity to take early retirement from a long career in Local Government in 2013. Primarily working as an enforcement officer within Environmental Health, I had the pleasure and on occasions, the displeasure of meeting a diverse range of people, which I found quite stimulating. Having held a lifelong interest in culture, art and photography, I took the plunge and enrolled on the BA (Hons) Photography degree at Coleg Sir Gar in 2017. Under the excellent tutelage of Iain Davies and Huw Alden Davies, the course provided me with an incredible opportunity to increase my technical, creative and visual language to a new level. I have often told others that the degree has opened a ‘pandora’s box’ of creative thinking and understanding. I was fortunate to graduate with a first-class honours degree in 2020 and I am the recipient of two awards from the college; the Anita Bowyer award and the annual Photo-book Award.

Photography has enabled me to interact with people and places that I would otherwise not have engaged with. The choice of subject matter comes from a mixture of intuition, research and a desire to document stories that unfold around me; looking for the light between the shadows, the stories that are not at first obvious.

Education and enlightenment have now become a drug, so with the desire to be inspired I have now commenced an MA at University of Wales Trinity St David (Swansea). Previous recent projects include an exploration of the livestock auction, Transgender, Protest, Westray and Veterans. My work has previously been displayed at King Street Gallery, Carmarthen, Northern Photo Festival, Harrogate, Basement Collective, Swansea, and Oriel Bevan Jones Gallery, Carmarthen.

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Jo Haycock

Posted on November 12, 2020

Jo Haycock is a documentary and environmental portrait photographer from Monmouthshire, South Wales, focusing on the connections and relationships people have between each other and the spaces and objects they live within.

Her love of photography began as a child, when she used to sit in the corner of the family bathroom-turned-darkroom, watching her father create prints from the situations he captured on the streets of Hong Kong, where she grew up. Jo now spends time with families and communities recording their stories. She believes in connecting with the people she photographs, going on a journey with them to genuinely feel and see a part of their lives.

Jo’s photographic practice also includes longer-term social and personal photographic projects. She spent a year with a local Women's Aid group, creating a body of work showing the empowerment and hope of the women and children who had previously suffered in their lives through domestic abuse, and were in the process of re-building their lives. She also collaborates with other artists to help tell community stories, bringing together a range of disciplines, from theatre performance, to mosaic and documentary photography. Her current long-term personal project is Discarded With Honour, which explores the relationships and talks about the objects we have in our lives, but that no longer serve us.

Website | Instagram

Jack Osborne

Posted on November 12, 2020

Jack Osborne is a lens-based artist from Cardiff. Inspired initially by the beauty of the natural world as a child, Jack took up photography as a means to capture this beauty. It wasn’t until his teenage years that his keen interest for fashion developed, and he turned the camera towards people instead. As a professional photographer, Jack’s work includes representations of both race and sexuality. Through fashion imagery, Jack aims to spark conversations regarding these topics. He believes that the more dialogue that can be created, the closer we will get to social justice for marginalised communities. Previous work includes his graduate project ‘Us’ and his self-portrait series ‘Project Lockdown’.

Website | Instagram

Ethan Beswick

Posted on November 12, 2020

The landscape and its occupiers are intrinsically linked. Our surroundings, both built and natural act as a framework from which we construct our social identity. This relationship between the environment and the people within is the primary focus of my practice. Prior to studying Photojournalism at Swansea College of Art, I trained as a quantity surveyor, which has given me a unique insight into the built environment, architecture, and the impact of materials and processes used to sculpt the world we live in. This fascination drives me to delve deeper into the psychological consequences of urbanisation and globalisation.

Website | Instagram

Cynthia MaiWa Sitei

Posted on November 12, 2020

MaiWa is originally from Kenya and moved to England in 2010 and then to Wales in 2017, where she pursued a Masters in Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales, graduating in 2019. Her first project “Wundanyi” was about stigma and stereotypes around rape, exploring the need and importance for rape to become a household conversation. Stories played a big impact in her upbringing; they were a form of entertainment during and mostly after dinner and a reliable method of communication in bringing people together and creating spaces where everyone was one, regardless of the difference in age, wealth and health.

After graduating with a BA in Psychology with Criminology in 2017, MaiWa knew exactly where she needed to go to achieve what she wanted to do in life. An MA at University of South Wales meant she could learn and understand how to use photography to impact change and create dialogue in villages where custom and traditions are different. She gains more in photography through research, the places it takes her, the people she encounters and those who allow her into their world – most importantly, because her crave for stories is never ending. Procrastination for her means a good game in tennis and listening to music or watching YouTube.

Website | Instagram

Antonia Osuji

Posted on November 12, 2020

I have always been fascinated by the interconnectedness of the world and how that relates to the human condition, both individually and socially. Like many others who seek understanding through investigation, my camera is my tool for exactly that; an excuse to get closer and to ask questions which usually would go unanswered.

The goal for me, is to make the ‘strange’ familiar and thus learn what it is to be human from another’s perspective, through acceptance and understanding.

My most recent exhibition includes an online teaser of ‘The Windrush Cymru: Our Voices, Our Stories, Our History’ - which is currently hosted on The Senedd website and runs until November 2020.

Website | Instagram

Abby Poulson

Posted on November 12, 2020

Abby Poulson is a photographic artist born and raised in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Employing camera-less techniques, alternative printing processes, installation and sculpture, her practice currently explores the local landscape of her homeland, whilst also responding to environmental concerns, and ideas of ruralism, heritage, memory and place. Abby is also a practicing curator, with a passion for developing rural creative networks for emerging artists, and has been featured and published widely.

Website | Instagram

Zillah Bowes

Posted on September 08, 2020

Zillah Bowes is a Welsh/English filmmaker, photographer and writer. She trained at the National Film and Television School (NFTS), where she was awarded the Kodak Scholarship. Work from her solo photo exhibition Green Dark, funded by the Arts Council of Wales, showed in the RA Summer Exhibition 2020. A preview was shown in Many Voices, One Nation, curated by Ffotogallery and the Welsh Parliament. Her lockdown photo series Allowed won two Honorable Mentions in the International Photo Awards 2020 and was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship Visual Art Prize 2021.

Zillah’s film Staying (Aros Mae), funded by Ffilm Cymru Wales/BFI NETWORK and BBC Wales, won the Grand Jury Prize at Premiers Plans Angers Film Festival 2021 and has screened internationally including Palm Springs ShortFest. She won a John Brabourne Award from the Film and TV Charity in 2020 and Creative Wales Award from the Arts Council of Wales in 2017. She has made documentaries and music videos which have shown worldwide and collaborated with Turner prize-winning artist Martin Creed. For her poetry, she has won the Wordsworth Trust Prize, Poems on the Buses Competition and Literature Matters Award from the Royal Society of Literature.

Alina Kisina

Posted on July 23, 2020

Alina Kisina is a Ukrainian-British artist photographer working and living in the UK. Her work is concerned with finding harmony in chaos through those universal, timeless human qualities that reach beyond location, gender and social background.
Alina has had her work shown around the world. Children of Vision was exhibited at the National Art and Culture Museum Complex in Kiev, Ukraine, as a solo exhibition in 2017 and 2018. Other solo exhibitions include ‘City of Home’ shown at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow and Light House Media Centre, Wolverhampton, also shown at FORMAT International Photography Festival, Derby and at festivals in Singapore and Syria. Education and public engagement are central to Alina’s practice. She was invited as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. Currently Alina continues to deliver public talks, portfolio reviews and participatory workshops with schools and with other groups.

Paul John Roberts

Posted on July 10, 2019

Paul John Roberts, based in South Wales, is a photographer working internationally, with a focus on the UK, France and Spain. He specialises in creative documentary, editorial and commercial portrait and performance photography. Recent works include ‘Submission, Suffering and Ecstasy’, exhibited in Reggio Emilia, Italy, and ‘Sepsis Story’, working with Sepsis Trust UK to help raise awareness of the condition in order to save lives, improve outcomes for survivors and support those affected by sepsis.

Kurt Laurenz Theinert

Posted on April 10, 2019

Kurt Laurenz Theinert is a photographer and live performing light and media artist. His visual piano performances are shown all around the world in Sao Paulo, London, Sydney, Berlin, New York and Singapore. He concentrates in his work on visual experiences that do not refer, as images, to anything. On the contrary, he is striving for an abstract, reductive aesthetic that has ultimately led him – through a wish for more dematerialisation – from photography to light as a medium.

Stanza

Posted on April 10, 2019

Stanza is an internationally recognised British artist, who has been exhibiting worldwide since 1984. His artworks have won twenty international art prizes and awards including:- Vidalife 6.0 First Prize Spain, SeNef Grand Prix Korea, Videobrasil First Prize Brazil, Cynet Art First Prize Germany, Share First Prize Winner Italy. Stanza’s art has also been rewarded with a prestigious Nesta Dreamtime Award, an Arts Humanities Creative Fellowship and a J.A. Clark bursary. Numerous commissions include work for Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Watermans Art Centre, FACT, and the Open Data Institute. His artworks have been exhibited with over one hundred exhibitions globally. Participating venues have included the Venice Biennale: Victoria Albert Museum: Tate Britain: Mundo Urbano Madrid: Bruges Museum: TSSK Norway: State Museum, Novosibirsk: Biennale of Sydney: Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo Mexico: Plymouth Arts Centre: ICA London: Sao Paulo Biennale: De Markten Brussels: Transport Museum London: Ars Nova museum.

Jonna Kina

Posted on April 09, 2019

Jonna Kina’s (b. 1984) work often lies at the junction of sound, language and image. She exhibits her findings with a poetic yet objective visual language that activates the viewer, challenging them to think critically about what they are being presented with.

Kina graduated from the Finnish Academy of Arts and from Aalto University, School of Arts, department of photography. She has also studied in the School of Visual Arts, New York and in Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem. Kina’s works has been widely presented in numerous exhibitions and film festivals, such as Tokyo Photographic Art Museum; Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA; Galleria delle Carrozze di Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence; Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg; Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne; International Film Festival Rotterdam; Hasselblad Foundation, Gothenburg; and recently at the 6th Moscow Biennale for Young Art, curated by Lucrezia Calabro Visconti. Nordisk Panorama selected Kina’s film “Arr. for a Scene” as the “Best Nordic Short Film”. Also she was shortlisted for the VISIO Young Talent Acquisition Prize in Florence. Kina’s works are represented in collections of such as Musée de l’Elysée, Fundación RAC – Foundation of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki City Art Museum, Saastamoinen Foundation, City of Levallois, France, Finnish Museum of Photography among others.

Michal Iwanowski

Posted on April 09, 2019

Michal Iwanowski is a Cardiff based visual artist and a lecturer in photography. He graduated with an MFA in Documentary Photography from the University of Wales, Newport in 2008, and has been developing and disseminating his work since 2004. He won the Emerging Photographer award by Magenta Foundation, and was awarded an Honourable Mention at Px3 Prix De Photographie, Paris. He has received Arts Council of Wales grants for his projects Clear of People and Go Home, Polish, both of which were nominated for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, in 2017 for his book ‘Clear of People,’ and in 2019 for the Go home Polish exhibition at Peckham24. His work has been exhibited and published worldwide, and has been acquired for the permanent collection of numerous institutions, including the National Museum of Wales.

Lua Ribeira

Posted on January 07, 2019

Lua Ribeira (1986) was born in Galicia, in the north of Spain. She received a BA Hons in Media Studies at the University of Vigo in 2009. In 2010 she moved to Barcelona and studied Graphic Design, where she discovered photography. Adopting it as a vocation, Ribeira moved to the UK in 2012 and later enrolled on the Documentary Photography course at the University of South Wales, where she graduated with honours in 2016.

Her practice, characterised by its collaborative nature, is the result of extensive research and an immersive approach to the subject matter. Ribeira is interested in trespassing social barriers and breaking the structural separation in relation to particular communities. By exploring the perception of life generated outside the strictly socially acceptable, her aim is to question the morals and values she grew up by.

Ribeira is the recipient of the Firecracker Grant 2015, Magnum Graduate Photographers Award 2017 and the Jerwood Photoworks Award 2018. Noises was published in book form by Fishbar in 2017. The series was also featured in the book ‘Firecrackers, Female Photographers Now’, published by Thames & Hudson in 2017. Ribeira joined Magnum as a Nominee in 2018.

Amak Mahmoodian

Posted on January 07, 2019

Amak Mahmoodian is an artist born in Shiraz and lives in Bristol, UK. In 2015, she completed a practice-based doctorate in photography at the University of South Wales, having previously studied at the Art University of Tehran. The artist’s work questions Western notions of identity, expressing personal stories that pertain to wider social issues which draws on her experiences in the Middle East, Asia and the West. Her previous project, Shenasnameh, has been widely exhibited internationally and the accompanying artist photobook won many awards and critical acclaim in publications as diverse as Time magazine, Lensculture and Foam magazine. In addition to her own artistic practice, Mahmoodian is a curator and through the Ffotogallery touring exhibition Bi nam – Image and Identity in Iran she provided first European exposure for emergent Iranian artists and photographers, presenting work previously unseen outside Iran.

Katrien De Blauwer

Posted on September 27, 2018

Born in Ronse in Belgium
Lives in Antwerp

Katrien de Blauwer has become a master in the art of “cutting”, a term that defines her practice better than “collage”, since the latter fails to express her mastery of composition and the formal impact of her creations. In fact, her artworks are not collages in the usual sense. They are not about associating fragments in order to recreate images like the surrealists did for instance. Her artistic gesture originates from an intuitive perception and a poetical process, but her approach is conceptual and essential in nature. Katrien de Blauwer is a meticulous observer and a careful analyst of the various elements that make up a photograph whether in relation to the subject matter – how it captures a piece of reality through framing- but also to the image space – the various levels and colors it is made of. However she is not directly a photographer. She prefers to pick and extract bits and pieces from others’ photographic language in order to revive their formal value.

John Wiltshire

Posted on September 04, 2018

John Wiltshire (1929-2016) was born in Walsall where his fascination for trains, trams, buses and shipping began. John was a talented technical photographer, recording much of what he saw with great precision. His photographic collection begins in 1948 with large format black and white images, and evolves into colour slide film over the following decades.

Derrick Price

Posted on May 23, 2018

Derrick Price worked in film, radio and publishing before embarking on a long career in higher education.

A cultural historian, he has written extensively on photography and film and worked for some years on the role of culture in urban development.

He has been an active participant in a number of arts and cultural organisations and was Chair of Watershed, Bristol for almost twenty years.

He is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the University of the West of England.

Phil Scully

Posted on April 26, 2018

Lisa Edgar

Posted on April 26, 2018

Liz Norcott

Posted on April 26, 2018

David Drake

Posted on April 26, 2018

Marcelo Brodsky

Posted on April 26, 2018

Marcelo Brodsky (1954) lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. An artist and political activist, Brodsky’s work is situated on the border between installation, performance, photography, monument and memorial. His emblematic work Buena Memoria (1996), has been shown more than 150 times in public spaces as well as museums and public spaces around the world. It narrates the story of his generation affected by the dictatorships in Argentina, and the holes left in it with the disappearances of friends and classmates.

Brodsky´s solo shows and books include Nexo, Memory under Construction, and Visual Correspondences, his visual conversations with other artists and photographers, such as Martin Parr, Manel Esclusa or Pablo Ortiz Monasterio. Recent projects include the publication of Once@9:53 with Ilan Stavans, a photonovella that combines reportage and fiction, and Tree Time, a book about the relationship between memory and Nature. His current exhibitions are “1968 the Fire of Ideas” and “Migrants”, an essay on the refugee crisis in Europe connected with his own migrations. His work is part of major collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston , the Tate Collection London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes Argentina, Museo de Arte Moderno Buenos Aires, Center for Creative Photography Tucson Arizona, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos Santiago de Chile, MALI Lima, etc.

John 'Hoppy' Hopkins

Posted on April 26, 2018

John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins (15 August 1937 – 30 January 2015) was a British photographer, video-maker and political activist, who was a highly influential figure in the UK underground movement in London. In 1965 he helped set up the ‘London Free School’ in Notting Hill. This in turn led to the establishment of the Notting Hill carnival. In 1966 Hopkins co-founded the influential ‘International Times’, a radical underground newspaper and Europe’s first ‘alternative’ publication. The voice of a generation, it was first edited by Glaswegian poet and playwright Tom McGrath (1940 – 2009). Hopkins remained a member of its editorial board and a major contributor. He also helped set up the legendary UFO Club with Joe Boyd, with Pink Floyd as the resident band.

Kurt Tong

Posted on April 25, 2018

Mike Perry

Posted on April 25, 2018

Mike Perry’s photographs examine the interactions of landscape, nature and industrial society, questioning the romantic mythology of national parks as areas of wilderness and natural beauty. Among the many artists documenting ecological collapse, Perry’s work is distinct in the hyperlocal and apparently mundane nature of his subjects. Rather than epic, aerial vistas of glaciers or oil fields, Perry directs our attention to the overlooked hedgerow or the shell-encrusted flip-flop. The drama of these micro-studies are nonetheless global, holding a tension between their extraordinary aesthetic beauty and the damage inflicted upon nature by human activity. At a time when ecological collapse and a global pandemic are drawing unprecedented attention to the importance and fragility of nature, his work could hardly be more resonant.

He was invited to the first Tipping Point symposium on climate change between leading scientists and artists at Oxford University and in 2015 presented to the Treasury on climate change action with economist Nicholas Stern and artists Antony Gormley and Cornelia Parker. In 2022, Perry created Y Cae (The Field), a 15 acre experimental art/ecology space for nature restoration and engagement with artists, writers and ecologists.

Perry’s work has exhibited at National Museum Wales’s New Ground : Landscape Art in Wales since 1970, (2012), Art and The Material Landscape (2016), and Land/Sea 2021. The Royal Academy of Arts exhibitions The Black and White Room (2014), Art Made Now (2018) and Climate (2022), at the internationally curated Vita Vitale exhibition at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and at the exhibition Found, curated by artist Cornelia Parker at The Foundling Museum (2016). In 2017, he was included in the British Arts Council Collection exhibition British Landscape and The Imagination at Towner Art Gallery.

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