Reframed – The Travelling World is Not Arriving
ReFramed is a Midlands-based network for Black, Asian and other racialised communities interested in producing photographic visual art. Set up by a team of award-winning photographers and curators, from these above communities, who believe that visual arts can play a critical role in shaping civic and contemporary attitudes. Starting collaborative conversations and changing prevailing thoughts about race, the local environment and our communities. As the first wave of COVID-19 approached, we were conscious of how our communities were being disproportionately affected and yet under-represented both in terms of who was being interviewed about it but also regarding who was asking the questions. The lack of inclusion and diversity in the media and the arts, whilst long-term and historical, seemed to be most apparent to us. Regrettably, even after many arts organisations, in the wake of the global Black Lives Matter movement, had pledged to be more inclusive. As a result, we undertook, with collaboration from Black Country Visual Arts and funding from the Arts Council, to create a range of opportunities for artists, from a cross-section of backgrounds, to respond directly to COVID-19 and the multiple ways it had affected their lives. The funding enabled us to support two artists, a number which later grew to five with the support of Kala Phool, Slanguages, New Art Exchange and Birmingham City University. Alongside these established artists we also, through workshop-based training opportunities, worked with several new artists across the Midlands to help them produce bodies of photographic work. We believe that it is fundamental that those involved in commissioning and making work that is directly about our communities, have the lived experiences, knowledge and consent of those communities in order to reflect them in honest and recognisable ways. In this light, it has been a great pleasure for all of us at ReFramed to have been able to give these artists the platform and opportunity to respond to this moment in time. The following images in this publication reflect the approaches of both our Bursary Artists and photographic workshop participants. Through their eyes we get to see their lives, thoughts and feelings reflected to us in an enduring time that is still yet to pass.
ReFramed is a Midlands-based network for Black, Asian and other racialised communities
interested in producing photographic visual art. Set up by a team of award-winning
photographers and curators, from these above communities, who believe that visual arts
can play a critical role in shaping civic and contemporary attitudes. Starting collaborative
conversations and changing prevailing thoughts about race, the local environment and our
communities.
As the first wave of COVID-19 approached, we were conscious of how our communities were
being disproportionately affected and yet under-represented both in terms of who was being
interviewed about it but also regarding who was asking the questions.
The lack of inclusion and diversity in the media and the arts, whilst long-term and historical,
seemed to be most apparent to us. Regrettably, even after many arts organisations, in
the wake of the global Black Lives Matter movement, had pledged to be more inclusive.
As a result, we undertook, with collaboration from Black Country Visual Arts and funding
from the Arts Council, to create a range of opportunities for artists, from a cross-section of
backgrounds, to respond directly to COVID-19 and the multiple ways it had affected their
lives.
The funding enabled us to support two artists, a number which later grew to five with the
support of Kala Phool, Slanguages, New Art Exchange and Birmingham City University.
Alongside these established artists we also, through workshop-based training opportunities,
worked with several new artists across the Midlands to help them produce bodies of
photographic work. We believe that it is fundamental that those involved in commissioning
and making work that is directly about our communities, have the lived experiences,
knowledge and consent of those communities in order to reflect them in honest and
recognisable ways.
In this light, it has been a great pleasure for all of us at ReFramed to have been able to
give these artists the platform and opportunity to respond to this moment in time. The
following images in this publication reflect the approaches of both our Bursary Artists and
photographic workshop participants. Through their eyes we get to see their lives, thoughts
and feelings reflected to us in an enduring time that is still yet to pass.
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Justin Carey<br />
BCU Bursary Award Winner<br />
www.justincarey.com<br />
@justincareycom<br />
Pages 26 to 31<br />
Justin Carey’s work reconsiders the urban environment, looking for connections to memories<br />
and emotions that are often unsettled or uncomfortable. Carey’s work also contemplates<br />
how the urban environment itself, with its inherent contrast between densely-populated<br />
spaces and individual solitude, shapes our experience of the world.<br />
Justin seeks to invite the viewer into a d<strong>is</strong>course around universal themes, creating room for<br />
collaboration and fair representation in h<strong>is</strong> work. Justin was shortl<strong>is</strong>ted for the ArtGemini Prize<br />
in 2015, graduated from the MA photography programme at Falmouth University in 2019, and<br />
combines h<strong>is</strong> photographic practice with a career as a consultant in the NHS. He currently<br />
lives in Birmingham, UK.<br />
Rebecca Orleans<br />
@poppybeadstory<br />
Pages 38 to 41<br />
Rebecca <strong>is</strong> a photographer based in Birmingham. Previously, she has been involved with the<br />
Inside Out Project for Birmingham, capturing lost stories in 2013.<br />
She was able to capture moments, views and skylines around the London Olympics &<br />
Paralympics in 2012, whilst officiating wheelchair basketball games at the Paralympics.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se opportunities have encouraged Rebecca to learn more about different genres of<br />
photography through Instagram meetups and workshops from local photographers.<br />
She has also embarked on a portrait project capturing the feelings of people involved<br />
with a major d<strong>is</strong>ability sporting event held in Worcester: European Wheelchair Basketball<br />
Championships 2015.<br />
Bharti Parmar<br />
ReFramed Bursary Award Winner<br />
www.bhartiparmar.com<br />
@bharti.parmar.studio<br />
Pages 32 to 37<br />
Bharti Parmar <strong>is</strong> an art<strong>is</strong>t and academic based in Birmingham and has a practice of 30 years.<br />
She studied at the Royal College of Art and has a doctorate in fine art which examines the<br />
poetics of Victorian material culture. She <strong>is</strong> a regular speaker at conferences on material<br />
culture studies and the postcolonial archive. She has been a trustee of various arts<br />
organ<strong>is</strong>ations, including MAC Birmingham, Meadow Arts and Coventry Biennial, currently<br />
serving as an Arts Council England Art<strong>is</strong>tic and Quality Assessor.<br />
She has participated on many international residency programmes, most recently at the<br />
Ir<strong>is</strong>h Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Recent work includes a comm<strong>is</strong>sion by ITV to take over<br />
their identity logo for a week in March 2019 for #ITVcreates. In July 2020, she was awarded<br />
the a-n Time Space Money bursary to research a project on Gandhi, Khadi, cotton and<br />
colonial<strong>is</strong>m.<br />
Ismail Khokon<br />
Pages 42 to 45<br />
Ismail moved to Britain from Bangladesh in 2004 as a student. For a few years, he moved to<br />
Poland with h<strong>is</strong> family and last year they decided to move back to the UK.<br />
Ismail was taught Fine Arts in Bangladesh and developed h<strong>is</strong> interests further through a<br />
Masters Degree in Design for Communication from Westminster University in London. He has<br />
spent most of h<strong>is</strong> life in the retail sector but <strong>is</strong> now spending more time in the art sector.<br />
He has worked as a volunteer at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, Brady Art Centre London and<br />
Surface Gallery. Now he works at New Art Exchange in <strong>Not</strong>tingham.<br />
Ismail has a broad interest in v<strong>is</strong>ual arts, and h<strong>is</strong> practice includes painting, sculpture,<br />
photography, text, installation, graphic design, illustration and poetry.<br />
Bharti <strong>is</strong> interested in vernacular crafts, systems, taxonomy and the poetics of repair. <strong>The</strong><br />
ReFramed bursary has supported research and development of an embroidered COVID-19<br />
infographic sampler. Th<strong>is</strong> long-duration work will be produced in her studio with the<br />
ass<strong>is</strong>tance of STEAMhouse Birmingham.<br />
72 73
Change language