Unlock the publisher's digest free
Roula Khalaf, editor -in -chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Each year, the director of photography of the magazine FT Weekend Emma Bowkett Artists commissions to show us how they see London. Here, four photographers offer their answers. Heather Agyepong, Hannah Hughes and Jermaine Francis will be exhibited at the exhibition of the 10th anniversary of Photo London, London Lives. Lucia Pizzani will show this work as part of a solo stand presentation
Lucia Pizzani
Dulwich Woods, Brockwell Park and Tooting Common are some of the green spaces in the south of London which provided joy, calm and well-being during the comfortable locks for all of us in the region. It was during the pandemic that I started working on these collages. Title Acorazada (Shielded) They transmit the idea of nature as a refuge, protecting us from diseases, a barrier that absorbs viruses and shelters many species.
The works presented here present two of the most important plants of these habitats: oaks and ferns. The two are old species, linked to old folk tales in the region. These two images, entitled “Verde London, Naciente and Creciente”, of the Spanish meaning born and growing, represent a human who is hybridized with trees and plants. My migration from Caracas to London is similar to a story shared by many in this city. It is a being that poses roots and adaptations, with nature as an endless tag.
The FT commission of Lucia Pizzani will be presented as part of “roots and ships” in the law projects of Victoria, Photo London
Hannah Hughes
The Museum of Sir John Soane in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the former house of the renowned London architect, houses another kind of city of that encountered beyond its walls. Inside is an archaeological fragments, plaster casts and models that Soane is cited as having called “studies for my own mind”.
I chose the museum for my London as an opportunity to respond to this Soane prompt, which the city outside can be reflected differently from the house. I went back to the museum to extend the speculative manufacturing processes in my own studio and to discover by Soane how the material evidence of the past can generate new forms in the present.
I got out of the least tangible spaces in the museum, identifying the forms of empty areas between fragments, using their edges as a guide. These negative spaces have been produced in clay and reflected polished brass, assembled and photographed in dialogue with objects from the collection. In these mirror images, empty spaces have become solid to offer new matches of materials.
The Hannah Hughes FT commission will be exposed in the London “London London” exhibition
Heather AGYEPONG
I had fought with severe professional exhaustion after a wonderful but tumultuous year.
I could never rest completely in London, but I did not have the funds to go abroad. I went to googled the “spiritual retreat” and found comfort at the Royal Foundation of St Katharine in Limehouse. I have never known such physical and spiritual rest.
During the day, my destination of choice was their chapel; In his center, there was a large compass, which they used to set up meditative activities. It left me deep peace and comfort that I had never lived in London before.
The work of Heather Agyepong is part of the exhibition “London Lives” in Photo London
Jermaine Francis
“Space is a doubt: I must constantly mark it, to designate it. It is never mine, never given, I must conquer it.”
– Georges Perec, “Space (continuation and end)”, “species of spaces and other rooms”.
I have become obsessed with time, perhaps caused by ripe age and increased conscience of my own mortality. I adopted the unstable property of photography as an appearance to allow what Roland Barthes called a time travel in time.
I emigrated to London from a working-class city in the post-industrial region of the black country, in the West Midlands. A place that helped me create and make myself. London then shaped me.
There are spaces in London where there are a cacophony of historical stories, intertwined with land and people on the other side of the world. Events in distant countries and the life of their inhabitants are often silent due to geographic separation, but these people are linked. The spirits of the past exist in the present.
In these images, I created a sensory kaleidoscope from interaction, imitating history. The temporality, the multiplicity and the plural surfaces collide both harmoniously and with friction. The black women of these images were unknown for years; While the stories of Dido Belle and Mary Seacole have been amplified, many others remain silent. In London, traces of their presence are found in public spaces photographed.
It seems that we are at a time when non -structuralist stories prevail, rather than the richness and complexity of history. With these images, I want to push beyond our comfort zones, be vast and embrace the potential of the opening.
The FT commission of Jermaine Francis will be exposed in the exhibition “London Lives” in London
Find out first of all our latest stories – Follow the FT weekend magazine on X And Ft weekend on Instagram
