Public Preview
Friday 2nd October
6 - 7pm
For more than three decades, Richard Billingham's work has explored the relationship between people and place. At a time when so much social interaction takes place through digital and virtual spaces, Billingham's attention returns to the physical spaces we share. This new work-in-progress considers the use of our public space, the streets, bridges, pavements and civic places where people become visible to one another.
Made primarily in Swansea, Billingham's home for over twenty years, the project began with long walks meandering through the city. Billingham became interested in how different people inhabit the same streets in different ways. Those living at the margins of society, including people experiencing homelessness or addiction, often navigate the city according to its hidden geographies and rhythms. Buskers, protestors and passers-by similarly reveal how public space is occupied, adapted and made visible. The camera becomes a way of paying closer attention to why certain places become sites of gathering, resistance, encounter or survival, while others appear overlooked or absent.
As Britain marks the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum, the project invites viewers to reflect on the changing social and economic landscape of Britain's towns and cities. The worksmake us look more closely at the ways public spaces are negotiated and lived in. What draws people to particular places? How do different people experience the same city? And what stories are embedded within the spaces we so often pass through without noticing?
About the Artist:
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Richard Billingham is a British artist, filmmaker and photographer. He originally studied painting at Sunderland University but later became interested in photography and filmmaking. His work deals with themes of home, place and marginalisation.
His first photographs were about his immediate family in the West Midlands, living in a high-rise block of flats. They were collected into a publication called ‘Ray’s a Laugh’ in 1996 and exhibited internationally. The images show the poverty and deprivation of his family yet his mother, father and brother ultimately shine through as troubled yet deeply human and touching personalities. Other bodies of work include ‘Black Country’, a series of urban photographs made around his home town of Cradley Heath and ‘Zoo’ a series of photographs and video installations about confinement and its effects on animals in zoos around the world. He has also photographed extensively in the British landscape.
GS Artists
217 High St
Swansea
SA1 1PE
Opening Hours:
Wednesday - Saturday
12pm - 4pm
Open until 31st October 2026