Photo North Leeds is a photography festival held annually in the Carrageworks in Leeds, the weekend long event creates a space for photographers and creatives to come together to network, view exhibitions, attend book launches and listen to talks given by guest speakers.
I was fortunate enough to attend the event!
Over the course of the festival I enjoyed attending John Bollotons Book launch, spoke to independent publishers such as village books and rrb photo books as well as attending a talk from Channel 4's senior picture editor Jamie Honeywood, who I was also lucky enough to have a portfolio review with.
Throughout the day I also spoke with GF Smith about paper samples and how they have just had a huge rebound as well as viewing the exhibition hall which hosted a vast amount of imagery made by a breath of emerging and professional creatives.
Personally a stand out part of the day was viewing the main exhibition where I was mesmerised by the work of Mike Abrahams. I am a huge fan of black and white documentary photography, so I suppose naturally Abrahams' work had already struck a chord with me. This was the first time I had come across his work and seeing it displayed encased by black frames with a white boarder really caught my attention due to the repetition of the monochrome tonalities.
In particular an image of two men stood in the street caught my eye. They are both riding on bikes and seemingly stopped to have their photograph taken, they are dressed smartly wearing shirts a jumpers and the main figure has a blazer on. He is centre of the frame with his body angled to the side whilst he holds a direct yet relaxed gaze into the camera. In the background there are depictions of social housing and a news agents on the corner of the street with a street lap adjacent to this which frames the two figures with in the composition.
Through the context of the work: Abrahams was documenting working class lives and environments during the years of Margret Thatcher's regime in the 80's. This image, taken in Toxteth Liverpool, a disadvantaged area of the city, is an environment which is the epitome of an urban community that has suffered significantly due to the harsh rule of the conservative government. Having the location and date as a caption bellow the framed imagery really resonated with me. As someone who has grown up and seen the implication of Thatcherism in Merseyside decades later, personally little has changed in some areas- Toxteth being one of them. This image in particular stood out to me in comparison to others maybe due to the location but the other images with in the sequence displayed the same narrative of depictions of working class lives, documenting to me how there was lasting nationwide repercussions of the conservative government.
Abrahams work was one of the more successful presentations of exhibited work. To be slightly critical of the exhibition, there was some other equality as powerful projects that could have been executed in a stronger way in terms of hanging and sequence. Walking around the space was an overwhelming experience, upon reflection this is due to the vast amount of work within the limited space. For some of the projects I wish that I had more space to breathe and had time for reflection in between each image. Nether the less, the projects were strong but could have been displayed in a more professional way in order for me as a spectator to be fully immersed within the work.
Overall, a great day that made me critically think about the exhibition process for our Graduation Show in June.