Photography exhibition - 22nd to 28th April 24
Page layout from my walled garden MA photography project
For the last two years I’ve been working towards getting an MA in Photography from Falmouth University. I finished in December getting a merit and will be exhibiting my final major project in the centre of York from the 22nd to 28th of April in Fabrication on Coney Street.
My final project is called Right Here, Right Now. It’s Historical, Big, Huge and Beautiful. I spent most of last year looking at a community working in a walled garden just outside of Bishopthorpe in York. Brunswick Organic Nursery provides a work-like environment for adults with learning disabilities. My wife works there and I have been a volunteer there for nearly ten years.
You can see more project images on my photography portfolio website here.
Project blurb for Right Here, Right Now. It’s Historical, Big, Huge and Beautiful
It is the basis of the desire of any group of human beings to have a place of their own, a place which gives them reality, presence, power of living, which feeds them, body and soul.
Paul Tillich (1995)
Hidden near the village of Bishopthorpe, a community of people are coming together. In this place – which many walk or drive past every day without knowing it’s there – people are creating wood-worked items, growing vegetables to sell in their own shop, and developing the garden. They have been doing this for nearly twenty years.
My wife has worked at Brunswick Organic Nursery for a decade; l've been a volunteer there for almost the same amount of time. Within the environment of the Archbishops’ walled garden, adults with learning disabilities are provided with a work-like environment. Right Here, Right Now. It's Historical, Big, Huge and Beautiful is a portrait of this community.
The project was a collaboration with Brunswick, empowering those pictured to be seen on their own terms, separate from from the societal label that's placed upon them. The walled garden is a place which offers people agency and autonomy.
There are multiple traces of historical, natural and social layers to be discovered here: the long history of the garden; the vignettes of many different lives that exist within this protected space, from plants to insects to the workers themselves; and the passing of time, its seasonal cycle of growth and renewal.
Gardens have a particular psychological effect, creating a place of sanctuary and growth in which individuals can find and uncover their values. At Brunswick, people can thrive, be validated and be seen on their own terms.
