Photography exhibition comes to Bradford after London show

IMPRESSIONS Gallery has partnered with a London arts group for an exhibition that will soon move from the capital to Bradford.

The City Park photography gallery has teamed with Peckham 24 and recently joined them in London for the launch of the new group exhibition Performing Histories / Histories Re-Imagined, co-curated by two groups.

The exhibition opened at Copeland Gallery in Peckham on Friday, May 17 and ends this Sunday, and tours to Impressions Gallery from Saturday, June 8 to Saturday, August 31, where it will be the first iteration of an exhibition from the festival travelling outside of London and meeting new audiences.

Vivienne Gamble, founder and artistic director at Peckham 24 said: ‘‘We are thrilled with our partnership with Impressions Gallery, which creates the opportunity for a chapter of this year’s artistic programme to travel beyond South London and meet new audiences in the North of England.”

Cut Them Out and Frame Them from the series Being Framed, 2022 © Laura Chen (Image: Laura Chen)

Performing Histories / Histories Re-Imagined offers an insight into photographic approaches that critically engage with ‘the archive’ to re-address the past and bring to the fore histories that have been overlooked.

It presents the work of Alba Zari, Amin Yousefi, Eleonora Agostini, Emi O’Connell, Jermaine Francis, Laura Chen, Odette England, and Tarrah Krajnak.

Three ways of working with archives are presented in the exhibition.

In some works, photographers place themselves at the centre of the archive and re-enact histories that have been forgotten. Others imagine histories that allow them to make sense of the world or to discuss fiction and truth in photography. Lastly, some give new meanings to archival materials by interrogating the gaze within the history of photography.

Together the work of these eight photographers explores the relationships between the archive and time and memory, the public and the private, fact and fiction, and trauma.

Anne McNeill, Director of Impressions Gallery says, ‘We are delighted to have co-curated Performing Histories / Histories Re-Imagined with Peckham 24.

"The exhibition offers a wide range of contemporary photographic practices that engage with archival records in many varied original ways. Almost since the inception of photography, historic records have been a constant source of inspiration for photographers.

"It is so stimulating to see how photographers continue to critically interrogate archives and continue finding unheard stories to bring attention to, and to imagine what the world could have been if stories had been kept and disseminated differently.”

Two of the artists, Emi O’Connell and Jermaine Francis will be at Impressions Gallery on Saturday, August 10 for an artist talk from 2pm to 3pm.