Legacy/Character Building

My work is informed by my thinking about representation and photography. I am interested in the messages embedded within visual language and the role and responsibility of the photographer in representing an individual, a theme, a history or a viewpoint. I think about these things because they affect me and define my understanding of myself, and the world in which I live.

‘Legacy’ is a series of images which explore the messages embedded within language and visual representation, and the impact these have had, and continue to have on the construction of race and the cultural understanding of racial identity. The series of images contains layers of meaning. The relationship between the title and the image is key to the journey between what we see, what we read and the sense we make of the relationship between the two. A book titled ‘Legacy’ also accompanies the series.

The film piece ‘Character Building’ depicts some of the sites of my experience and memory of growing up in Britain as a Black girl/woman, of dual heritage. Inspired by the idea of creating a visual memory, the work references moments which have shaped how I perceive myself in relation to others, and which have informed survival strategies that I am still aware of using today. It is not intended to be a diary of every incident of racism I have experienced, but an exploration of those that, for different reasons, I carry with me.