Kala Phool, with Slanguages, are proud to of supported a bursary as part of the ReFramed inaugural cohort of photographic visual artists through Nilupa Yasmin‘s, Bangles For All.
Out of this has come ReFramed’s publication, The Travelling World Is Not Arriving.
A stunning collection of visually creative responses to COVID-19 and the pandemic.
ReFramed goes on to discuss their work…
ReFramed is a Midlands-based network for Black, Asian and other racialised communities interested in producing photographic visual art.
Set up by a team of award-winning photographers and curators from these above communities, who believe that visual arts can play a critical role in shaping civic and contemporary attitudes, starting collaborative conversations and changing prevailing thoughts about race, the local environment and our communities.
As the first wave of COVID-19 approached, we were conscious of how our communities were being disproportionately affected and yet under-represented, both in terms of who was being interviewed about it and also regarding who was asking the questions. The lack of inclusion and diversity in the media and the arts, whilst long-term and historical, seemed to be most apparent to us. Regrettably even after many arts organisations, in the wake of the global Black Lives Matter movement, had pledged to be more inclusive.
As a result we undertook, with collaboration from Black Country Visual Arts and funding from Arts Council England, to create a range of opportunities for artists, from a cross-section of backgrounds, to respond directly to COVID-19 and the multiple ways it had affected their lives. The funding enabled us to support two artists, a number which later grew to five with the support of Kala Phool, Slanguages, New Art Exchange and Birmingham City University.
Alongside these established artists we also, through workshop-based training opportunities, worked with several artists across the Midlands to help them produce bodies of photographic work. We believe that it is fundamental that those involved in commissioning and making work that is directly about our communities, have the lived experiences, knowledge and consent of those communities in order to reflect them in honest and recognisable ways.
In this light, it has been a great pleasure for all of us at ReFramed to be able to have a platform at FORMAT21 alongside a publication called ‘The Travelling World is not arriving’ so that we can share this work. The images in this exhibition reflect the approaches of both our Bursary Artists and photo-graphic workshop participants. Through their eyes we get to see their lives, thoughts and feelings reflected back to us during this difficult time.
Reframed artist represented in the publication and online exhibition: Amrit Doll, Ashwin Patel, Bharti Parmar, De’Anne Crooks, Ismail Khokon, Justin Carey, Krishan Patel, Nilupa Yasmin, Pritt Kalsi, Raúl Valdivia Murgueytio, Rebecca Orleans, Sanah Iqbal
The ReFramed Team: Sebah Chaudhry, Andrew Jackson, Jagdish Patel and Anand Chhabra.
Nilupa Yasmin – Bangles For All
Amrit Doll – The Travelling World Is Not Arriving
