Another Language/ In the Pink Room

CULTURE SHIFTS #5

Another Language & In The Pink Room Stephanie Wynne / Stephanie Fawcett Wirral Change / Tomorrow’s Women Wirral

Welcome to the Culture Shifts brochure series Culture Shifts is a socially engaged photography programme, working with 11 national and international photographers embedded in communities across 7 areas of Liverpool City Region. The project seeks to support communities to explore their stories in a way that is meaningful to them.

graphic image, and look at the various strands of collaborative practice each photographer and the medium itself can bring to the work. What happens when we move away from the voice of a single image-maker to that of the collective voice, co-creating, co-narrating and co-curating their own photo story?

Collaborating with photographers, communities have co-authored a series of photo stories: sequences of images that reflect on their identity, interests and lives. Collectively we hope these photo stories will inspire, surprise or challenge people, through exhibitions, an open online platform (www.photostories.org.uk) and within each of our specially designed Culture Shifts brochures.

Through Culture Shifts, photographers and communities have come together to curate their own messages and broadcast them in a way that is inclusive, collaborative and representative. This is the foundation of socially engaged photography. We are delighted to share both the outcomes and the process of each photographer and community.

Together, as communities, commissioners and photographers, we aim to explore the role of photography as a tool for expression and a platform to challenge stereotypes of localised identities. Each community collaborated with a different photographer, and although throughout the course of the programme some themes emerged time and time again, each project was distinct in its approach to working and in the final work created.

Culture Shifts has only been made possible through the collaborative approach to partnership commissioning and delivery and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the local authority venues, cultural, community and health sector partners across the region who made the project a reality. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our core funders for the programme, Arts Council England, for our strategic touring funding support.

Culture Shifts aimed to challenge questions around authorship in the photo-

Culture Shifts Creative Producer Liz Wewiora

CULTURE SHIFTS #5

Another Language & In The Pink Room

These projects are a collaboration between photographers Stephanie Wynne, Stephanie Fawcett, and two separate groups of women based at Wirral Change and Tomorrow’s Women Wirral.

Both projects are presented at Culture Shifts venue partner, the Williamson Art Gallery. It was important to the gallery to showcase the diversity of the area and through the projects, champion the women of Wirral. Collectively Another Language and In the Pink Room have created a series of photo stories, which reflect a real sense of vibrancy and pride from the local Wirral Community.

Another Language The photographs in this project have all been produced with a group of women from Wirral Change, a Black and Minorities Outreach Service.

Most of the women in the group were international, with English as a second language. Another Language seeks to use photography as a universal common language, creating new opportunities for communication between the women of the group.

The work takes the form of long sequences or ‘conversations’ of photographs, almost like unfurled rolls of camera film.

Each conversation begins with an image taken by Stephanie Wynne or Steph Fawcett that resonates with the women’s group.

Using this as a starting point, the women in the group add another image that acts as a response. Long photographic conversations developed out of this process.

The conversations reveal the women’s love of home, colour, landscape and the environment. They also include images from the participant’s family archives and documentation of their journeys to Britain and around the world.

In addition to the conversations, the women are represented in a set of collaboratively produced portraits that give clues to their backgrounds; they are shown within images of their own mirror frames, or

selected picture frames, to conjure the sense of contemplating their own reflection, or looking how they wish to appear.

The colour palette used for the panels is taken from the Della Robbia Collection of pottery, housed at the Williamson Art Gallery. This connects the women, regardless of their birthplace, to Wirral: their chosen home.

“I am grateful for all the skills I have learnt and my view of life through a lens will never be the same again.”

Jenny, Participant at Wirral Change

In The Pink Room Tomorrow’s Women Wirral is a female only environment that the members of the group see as a haven. As one participant puts it, “everyone needs a place like this”.

The women have varied interests and reasons for attending the centre; this is reflected in the work produced. Each participant photographed or collected images of a personal interest, they then applied these images to masks. They chose masks to display their photographs

because they felt that we all, often, have to disguise our true selves. With the support and fellowship found at Tomorrow’s Women Wirral they feel they’ve been helped to remove their masks.

The panoramic portrait of the group, including the two photographers, is set in the beautifully tended garden at Tomorrow’s Women Wirral, making a connection between the participants, their haven and the concept of personal growth.

In the photograph, most of the women are wearing the masks not for anonymity but because of the group’s sense of fun, playfulness and camaraderie.

Photostories

“4 billion photographs per day are uploaded onto social media.

Photography is now as important as text or verbal communication in the stories we tell about our lives.”

Sarah Fisher, Executive Director, Open Eye Gallery

Culture Shifts doesn’t end here. Contributing to the project is open to all through PhotoStories, our new online showcasing platform: photostories.org.uk.

Photostories showcases the result of our Culture Shifts collaborative photography projects, but the platform is also open to anyone. There are resources on the site to help you think about the way you capture, select and curate your own digital exhibition of images.

Everyone is invited to upload photo stories - sequences of photos - that reflect on the people, places and communities that make up your experience of the world.

More and more, we are using photography to communicate to each other. But just like verbal or written language, we must use photography to communicate responsibly and effectively. To join in, get a free PhotoStories account. photostories.org.uk

Partners

#cultureshifts photostories.org.uk