This month I am running a cyanotype workshop at the South London Gallery. the workshop will take place at the SLG new Fire Station building which has a fantastic space for workshops. See more info on this link.
I am very happy to share that SPAIN arts & culture, the Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain in USA, will be covering my transport and accommodation expenses while I’ll be in NY benefiting from Penumbra Foundation professional development programme. Read more about SPAIN arts and culture and Penumbra Foundation by clicking on the links.
From the 6th of June until the 30th, my work will be on display with Golden Thread Gallery as part of Belfast Photo Festival. The exhibition includes works by London Alternative Photography collective artist, and goes with a public programme to which I contributed with a chlorophyll printing workshop.
The works on exhibition were produced in China in November 2018 thanks to a grant from Quad Derby, FORMAT Festival and the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. They reflect on my experience as an artist in residency at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, where as a foreigner not speaking Chinese and staying there for just a month, I could only access and understand fractions of the selective realities made available to me. In that context, I built a camera that could only expose 3mm fragments of film. I installed the works in a manner that reflects on the notions of access/barrier and that invites the viewers to visually scan the works as they move left to right, mimicking the way these negatives were exposed.
This series of disrupted landscapes, and sometimes abstract images, explores the limits of representability of identity within my own art practice. The series approaches non-figurative methods of depicting my (artist in residency) identity as a subject.
This month I received the thrilling news of being awarded a Heritage Lottery Fund project grant to allow the London Alternative Photography Collective, which I currently co-direct, run a series of exciting events!
This April I have had the pleasure to do a series of artist talks at the Science Museum presenting my practice and the chlorophyll printing process. The talks have been very popular with an estimated audience of +200 attendants !
This March I was approached by The Auction Collective to show the Piece Mariah Idrissi at Menier Gallery and participate in an auction. I was interviewed by their curator Francesca Wilson (you can read the interview on this link), and I was invited to present my work to a selected group of collectors.
This February I have been working with BBC Four on a commission for the Victorian Sensations documentary which will be launched in May at BBC Four and at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. On this occasion, I demonstrated my practice as a specialist on Victorian photographic techniques and did an interview with Philippa Perry.
BackThen, a new media outlet that works as part of In the NOW - a platform with over 3.3 million followers- also came to the studio to do a short documentary focusing on my practice, which will be launched on early April.
2019 has started with a fantastic course at National Portrait Gallery, as well as a day lecture at University for the Creative Arts and the regular wet collodion courses in my studio!
This December, I have been invited by the Royal Society to give a talk about my practice and to demonstrate the wet collodion process for the event Collections by candlelight, Victorian Christmas.
From the 29th of Ocober until the 29th of November, I have been in China working in 2 different projects:
- An arts residency awarded to me by the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute together with Format Festival, where I gave a lecture at this university and produced new work .
-The exhibition Vision and Reflection at the Tsinghua Art Museum in Beijing, curated by Phillip Prodger, for which I was commissioned a video demonstrating my practice . A whole room of the exhibition was dedicated to this video projection, being one of the highlights of the show.
