I am very pleased to share that I have been awarded a grant from The Royal Society of Chemistry Outreach Fund. Thanks to this fund, I am producing a series of videos on photographic techniques that can be practised at home, alongside a series of online events including a workshop, talks, and a peer-feedback meeting.
This July, I have been taking part in a Digital Residency at Guest Projects funded by The Yinka Shonibare Studio, the Triangle Network and the London Community Response Fund. As part of the residency, I organised two online talks with artists Farhad Berahman, Lucia Pizzani, Bindi Vora, Cherelle Sappleton and Ngadi Smart, and ran an anthotype printing workshop.
This month, I have also been awarded the Awesome Without Borders Grant from The Harnisch Foundation to produce a step by step video on chlorophyll printing. More details soon!
I am incredibly pleased to share that this month I have been awarded three grants that will allow me to keep my studio and produce work while the coronavirus prevents me from teaching at museums and universities.
Teaching in public institutions has been a robust source of income for me for the past 5 years. It has been my ambition for some time to find financial support for the production of my work, which requires very specialised (and expensive) equipment and materials, to be able to dedicate more time to this aspect of my practice. It seems that I have now managed, in this strange context, to find the support I needed, and I am happy I’ll be able to dedicate the rest of 2020 to the development of my practice in this manner.
I would like to thank the Richard and Siobhán Coward Foundation, the Eaton Fund and ACAVA for their support of my practice.
I am beyond thrilled to share that I have been awarded the BMW 2020 residency. A panel formed by Maryse Bataillard, Manager of Corporate Communications at BMW France, Nathalie Berriat, Director of GOBELINS, François Cheval, Artistic Director of the Residency, Hervé Digne, Collector, Chantal Nedjib, l’image par l’image, Consultant for the BMW Residency, Sam Stourdzé, Director of Rencontres d’Arles and Christophe Wiesner, Artistic Director of the Paris Photo fair has chosen my work unanimously.
The residency will take place from September to December 2020 and the award includes:
I am very glad to share I have received £2.5K from Arts Council England Emergency Response Fund, which allows me to continue to work and relaunch my practice despite having had major cancellations due to COVID-19.
During these months I have also been running online workshops and taking part in an online art auction run by The Auction Collective.
This month I am delivering a particiàtory art project funded by the London Community Foundation and PeaBody.
I have also been interviewed and asked to demonstrate the wet collodion process by BBC Four for a 60-minute episode focusing on the Victorian Era led by Lucy Worsley.
I was invited by Nunnery Gallery to take part in the London Art Fair 2020. The works were very well received and included in the photography highlights tour of the fair run by Diane Symth. Read more about the series on this link.
During October and November 2019, I have been undertaking a residency at Penumbra Foundation, NY. During the residency period I ran an Open Studio event and delivered a lecture at School of Visual Arts New York by invitation from Lyle Rexer. On the 27th of November, the London Alternative Photography Collective presented my practice at the Science Museum London for the Art and Science Late event.
This October I have been undertaking a residency at Lucy Art residency in Kavala, developing an in-depth research on tobacco. This residency has generously been supported by LAR, the I-Portunus programme as well as by the Kavala’s Tobacco Museum.
The work I did during the residency includes a series of chlorophyll prints using images of worker’s hands in the processes of selecting, controlling and modifying nature to render it profitable, from the archives of Kavala’s Tobacco Museum.
I also worked with a newspaper from the 21st of April of 1967 (the coup d’état day from right-wing army officers in Greece and the beginning of the regime of the colonels) to reflect on the use of farming and nature to advance specific political agendas. The newspaper talks about the new regime and the new subventions farmers had access to. The military junta was initially mainly supported by farmers. I used the cyanotype process which is often seen as naive and organic, when it’s main legacy relates to photography’s early use to study, analyse, and rationalise nature.
During the residency, I visited a tobacco plantation where religious images seemed to be placed to protect the product. Being farming an extremely tough business where one might be at the mercy of outside forces such as market fluctuations or weather, I wasn’t surprised to see them. I decided to do a perfume with Kavala’s tobacco leaves on an edition of 33 bottles of 2ml to reflect on subjective appreciations of value and worth.
Below some images of the final pieces produced as well as of the production process.
I am very pleased to be selected for the Bow Open Show curated by Carey Young. Exhibition runs from September 27 to December 15.