I am very proud of my exhibitions. I think you get a different feel for a picture when you look at an exhibition print as opposed to looking at it online or in a publication. Although I love the privileged and hushed excited atmosphere of a gallery, I am a great fan of exhibiting work in an outdoor space. The notion that people, who'd not normally go into a gallery, can come across documentary picture stories as they go about their daily business, is very attractive to me
A picture from my ongoing documentary about Lea Bridge Road is one of ten winning images selected for national exhibition by the joint initiative titled ‘Picturing High Streets’ run by Historic England, The Photographers’ Gallery, Photoworks and Clear Channel. The picture which is part of the theme ‘Bus Stop Stories’ is being showcased on advertising screens at bus stops throughout England in July and August 2023. You can see the other winners by clicking on the picture.
My solo exhibition ‘New Town Youth 1985’ at the Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery 2023 ran for over five months after an extension. The pictures document the aspirations, fears and challenges that young people in Peterborough faced as the country struggled out of a deep recession in Thatcher’s Britain in 1985. The exhibition consisted of nine stories and the whole show was beautifully designed by Verity to give it an editorial feel. One story titled 'Young Broke & Homeless' was presented as a projected slideshow with a soundtrack 'Girl' written by Jennifer O'Neil. Just for fun I created a timelapse of the exhibition being mounted that can be seen by clicking here. See the whole exhibition by clicking on the picture above.
Almost exactly two years to the day of the government’s announcement of the ‘Roadmap out of Lockdown’ the series of pictures I shot of walkers and their overheard snippet of conversation during lockdown were on exhibition at the Temple enclosure in Wanstead Park, Epping Forest February 2023. During the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown in London February 2021, many had taken to daily exercise which was permitted under the rules. Most of us had slipped into a routine - same place, same time and often same conversation and I wanted to document these strange times. In addition to the portraits of people on their daily exercise, I included the small snippet of conversation I overheard as they walked past me on the exhibition panels. Click on the picture above to see the pictures and read what was overheard.
'A portrait of the High Street' is documentary that examines the hopes, fears and aspirations of high street business owners as they struggle against online shopping, rising costs and the impact of covid. I chose to shoot it in black and white film using a vintage Rolleiflex as a nod to the beautiful formal portraiture from the Edwardian period where proud shop keepers would pose outside their businesses. It was shown at three venues, The Bull for an opening evening where I showed the video, on Christchurch Green that runs opposite the High Street and at the Temple enclosure in Wanstead Park. If you click on the top picture, it will take you to all the pictures and on the bottom picture to a video of people commenting on the outdoors exhibition. The exhibition was sponsored by the Stow Brothers and supported by City of London.
Very proud to be part of the Museum of Youth Culture (MOYC) exhibition 'Grown Up In Britain. 100 Years of Teenage Kicks' at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum in Coventry. Five of my images from my picture stories on youth groups in Peterborough in 1985 are part of this visual celebration of teenage life from the roaring 1920's to the youth of today.
As part of the celebrations to mark Hull UK City of Culture the HiP gallery exhibited some of my pictures taken in Hull in 1983/4. Picture stories from the Star and Garter, Rag and Bone man George Norris, people of Hull living with blindness, drag act Kandy de Barry (now called Bobby Mandrell) and The Stray Dog Problem. It was great to see characters and family members from my stories show up. Many thanks to Alan Raw from the HiP gallery who made this all happen.
'Russell Boyce photographed Hull’s fishing dockland and its community. He concentrated on a one-parent family, thereby using Orwell’s example of quoting an individual’s struggle as a call for social change.' You can see my original story by clicking on the picture above. Stills from the original show lost in time.
'In November 1972 Impressions Gallery opened in a room above a shop in York with the first ever exhibition by the then unknown Martin Parr. As one of the first specialist photography galleries in Europe it has gone on to play a vital role in championing photography and has had a huge impact on the development of the photographic culture in Britain. To mark this occasion Anne McNeill, Director of Impressions, has selected from the gallery’s archive an exhibition first shown in October 1984. Taking as their starting point George Orwell’s seminal 1937 publication The Road to Wigan Pier, a sociological investigation into the bleak living conditions of the working class in Yorkshire and Lancashire, six newly graduated students of photography were commissioned by Impressions to record and document social aspects of the North of England. Each worked independently and each took a personal viewpoint. These non-judgemental, yet sometimes shocking, photographs show us a way of life that was in terminal decline. This picture of Orwellian dystopia acts as an elegy of the northern urban landscape and its people, on the brink of irrevocable social and cultural change. Today, in-post industrial Britain, we are perhaps inclined to forget the recent past as many of the symbols of poverty and neglect have been replaced by regeneration.'