I see you

I SEE YOU

Venue: Outside, various locations
- Opposite 44AD artspace, Abbey St, BA1 1NN
- In the Bath College garden, James St West, BA1 1UP
- Green Park Rd, on the hoardings by the new Quays Bridge, BA1 1UT

The idea for ‘I SEE YOU’ was born out of Pia Jaime's first online community Photojournaling project with carers in 2021, during the 3rd lockdown. Pia felt the need to connect with other mothers/carers and step-parents who felt deeply the changes in their caring roles and the weight of it during the pandemic and beyond it. 

This experience was transforming and it led her to work with other communities of carers. She concluded that the isolation and the invisibility of the caring role didn’t differentiate age, sex, race or social background. Pia noticed a shared need to assert individual identities, emotional and physical spaces. 

Pia invited Photographer Anne-Marie Briscombe, fellow mother whose work enquires about mental health in diverse environments, to help curate this exhibition.

‘I SEE YOU’ called for photographic work from people over the age of 18 who regularly look after a child with additional needs, or a sick, elderly or disabled person. This includes both physical and mental ill health.

This project asked participating Artists/carers to turn their gaze inwards and focus on their own perspective and their relationships with their own lives and identities, not on the needs of the person they are caring for.

This call was open to professional and nonprofessional artists/photographers. 

Exhibiting Artists:

Alice Lenkiewicz, Anna Lerner, Irene Ros, Jacky B, Maria Pia Jaime, Melanie Harding, Paulina Korobkiewicz, Nikki Hatchett, Nikki Davidson-Bowman, Rosie Barnes.

Jacky B,

Ancient Oak, Sherwood

I was born on the edge of Sherwood Forest and love its ancient oaks.  As I have grown older myself, I now think of them as the grand old ladies of Sherwood, with their bumps, scars and outspread arms, symbols of a full life and witness to so much. They have gravitas I’ve never found elsewhere.

For the pictures I have submitted I concentrated on one oak in particular whose trunk had lost a significant amount of bark revealing the most unusual and intricate patterns. Its bleached trunk patched with ochres, the patterns reminding me of prehistoric jewelry I had seen in the national museum of Ireland and the ochres of the stone age carvings in Cresswell Craggs a short distance away. 

These ancient and decaying oaks have an important role to play in providing much needed habitat for insects, birds, and other wildlife.

As I now have the additional responsibility of caring within my extended family photography has taken on a different role for me.  It has long been a link between my love of nature and a desire to capture its beauty.  It now takes on a new urgency as my free time is more limited and the need to be connected to this other part of me more important.

Rosie Barnes @rosiebarnesphoto

Elastic Bands

This ball of elastic bands finds itself in different places around our house. It somehow speaks to me about how stretched I feel in so many directions, but how I have to keep so many of my worries and anxieties under wraps, tucked away, tightly held. People don’t really want to hear about this stuff too much. I understand. But when it’s with you all the time, you do need an outlet. It’s easy to lose friends over. Some people do get it. But it’s probably because they have some personal understanding themselves. 

Doodle

I found myself writing and doodling on this scrap of paper, whilst hanging on the phone to my local authority (for the zillionth time), trying to find someone to talk to, to start the conversation about supported living. They don’t want to speak to me. Rather than being helpful with information, they are actually obstructive. They only want to talk to us when we’re either in crisis or when he is ready to move, when they will inform us where he can go, if anywhere. This leaves us with no possibility of gently planning for this enormous step in his life and makes me realise what mountains, he, and we, still have to climb.

Nikki Davidison-Bowman @nikkidbartist

I am a conceptual artist working with found things - vintage photographs, ephemera, words, and natural finds from my therapeutic walking - to explore female stories of resilience. I expose the darker sides of life, blurring the semi-autobiographical with fiction to highlight the precariousness of being human, to start intergenerational dialogues about silent happenings, such as terminal illness, infertility, grief, dementia, caregiving & hearing loss, from a female perspective.

‘Knowledge’ and ‘I am not’ are from a series of works, ‘Mothering Mother’ made in response to my mother’s terminal neurological diagnosis (Motor Neurone Disease/ALS) and her cognitive dysfunction (a subtle form of dementia), where the role of ‘mother’ was subsequently and drastically reversed.  Grabbed moments in the studio enabled respite and reconnection with who I was and a therapeutic outlet and nurturing space for the anticipatory grief of what is to come and the loss of what was my normal as the role of daughter becomes that of family carer.

The artworks use vintage found photographs, enhanced with drawing, thread, paint & collage, with appropriated words from vintage books, breaking from the burden of technology, exploring the complex relationship when roles and boundaries shift beyond recognition. The artworks seek to raise awareness of the unseen role of (primarily) female family carers, the struggle of caring whilst experiencing huge change, sacrifice and loss, through sharing the journey. A hope that the works may encourage greater understanding & compassion for those caught up in the role of caring whilst grieving, through the poetic narratives that reveal a complex and intimate experience including the private want to run away from it all.

Karen Edkins

“Beat All Ills”

I have always been a photographer, mainly documentary portraiture, but when my son was born I became his 24/7 carer and my photographic journey had its wings clipped. Then, during the first lockdown my son and I started working collaboratively on making pastiche movie poster highlighting various issues around disability awareness. “Beat All Ills” is a take on The Beatles Help album and is the first solo piece I have made.

Pia Jaime @jaimemariapia

Door

Not egg shells

When words fail me, there is photography.  And image that can shape what I can't name. I use my body and my household (building and objects) as vessels where emotional vibrations reverberate in eternal chain reactions. 

My work deals with the invisibility of the carer’s roles within the home, their effects on mental health.

Melanie Harding @photomelanie1

STILL LIFE is a series of photographs that explore the impact of caring for a loved one with a disability or long term illness. 

It seeks to connect with themes of normality, isolation, invisibility, and the transience of life.

‘Still Life’ is the state of existence that continually accompanies the cared for and their carers. 

Each day life exists: ‘Still’ …but with attention to one's own mortality within the context of the everyday and ‘Life’ …an unsensational existence, where everyday objects are tinged with the hue of caring responsibilities—a constant reminder of what needs to be done to sustain the illusion of normality. Buried within this illusion, these tensions only accentuate the uncertainty that people with a disability or long-term illness, and their carers, face in a society cultivated on notions around health, vitality, mindfulness, and productivity.

Paulina Korobkiewicz @pakropka

For You, 2022 

Ever-since moving abroad I have been making periodical trips back home to Poland. Last year while visiting my family I strongly felt the passing of time.

About 15 years ago my grandfather suffered a severe stroke, and my grandmother had been caring for him until it was no longer possible. She occupied the time she was not spending looking after him by creating different things: reworking her leather jackets into bags, making plastic jewellery, decorating boxes. When her older sister started selling eggs and jams at the local market, my grandmother realised that there may be a demand for seasonal decorations and started to make them too. 

My grandmother started purchasing various home decorations, textiles and accessories, gradually turning a coping mechanism into an obsession. She appears to have found peace in the process of crafting her own decorations from the items she purchases and selling them at the market. 

All of the goods she buys are very cheap and disposable, she seems lured in by bargain deals and 2-for-1 offers that she was not used to in her youth. Plastic bunnies, snowmen, baby Jesus, fake plants, traditional textiles, dead flowers and bright ribbons; my grandmother is trying to recreate the aspects of Polish traditions that are dear and familiar to her from combinations of new mass-produced and plastic items. She was raised Catholic and her wreaths focus around themes of Christmas and Easter. These two most important celebrations in Polish culture connect her with traditions from her home and her childhood.

Besides her personal story, my grandmother’s sculptural creations could be seen as a metaphor for the lives of many people from her generation. To me the wreaths she creates combine the new added quality of the capitalist influence alongside nostalgia for the past. They express what came with living through the system transition which took part in her life, leaving her often confused. 

Through these images I wanted to share the playful element, a sense of childhood fun which my grandmother holds onto, combined with the therapeutic influence of creation. Making these photos together resembled our old childhood play and escapism, where we would connect without discussing anything serious, and take control of what was currently happening.  Even though my grandmother doesn’t like to admit it brings her joy, I feel that the process of creation allows her to focus on what is in front of her. 

Last year my grandfather had to be admitted to a hospice, and sadly he passed away this summer. Observing my grandmother now without my grandfather I realise that she does not know how to allow herself to be still, and to be present she must be occupied.

There is a new element of grief associated with my grandfather passing. To some the wreath symbolises death, to others the circle of eternal life. 

Alice Lenkiewicz @songbirdgallery45

Rose

Alice Lenkiewicz is an artist and writer. She grew up in Plymouth but now resides in the North West. Alice has exhibited widely. Her works consists of abstract and visionary paintings. She has used photography throughout her career as an additional medium to support and aid her work, most often focusing on the idea of place and found art. Her photographs  for this exhibition, I See YOU, focus inwards on her personal experiences of being a carer for people over the years. Her photos gain inspiration from her surroundings and express a variety of angles on how to approach self - care while carrying out this role.

“The idea behind my work is strength and hope during times of difficulty and isolation. I have chosen photographs I have taken that represent these feelings; pictures of mountains, animals and nature to represent my thoughts. Sometimes, when looking after people with disabilities and those with mental health problems we look for strength and solace in other things and our surroundings. The images I have taken represent the positives and provide strength in times of need.”

Anna Lerner @annalernerphotography

Fallen leaf (in its place) 

Gentle balance 

I have over time become a carer. While the caring role can feel all consuming, so can my photography. Photography has become increasingly important, as a counterbalance; a space to pause, breath, and re-generate. I try to take time to photograph daily. Observing and exploring with my camera, I find joy, appreciation, revelation and promise in the everyday, and perfection in the imperfect.  

Both photographs featured in this exhibition are ‘resting’ leaves. In taking these photographs, I was struck by a sense of coherence. On the surface, between physical reality and its reflection, the fallen leaves are perfectly placed, as if (re) connected to the tree from which they grew.  As I revisit these photographs, I think of the cycle of life and death; the leaves positioned between the two realms; growth alongside deterioration and loss; beauty and – perhaps - a degree of acceptance, or at least appreciation, of nature’s cycle.    

Nikki Hatchett 

Rejuvenating

This work is exploring themes of my past, present and even future identities. I use the metaphor of 'potions' (inner worlds) to incorporate lots of ideas around my identity and the changing, ever evolving relationship to myself. Those that I may have stored up and bottled for a time I might need to draw on aspects of them...those that have been lost and found again, or never really lost, just hidden. Things I still aspire to or want to rediscover. 

The last decade has been devoted to creating and nurturing three small humans, some of whom are neurodivergent, and as a home educating family and full time stay at home mum, I have struggled to make any time for myself to make or create, though I have never forgotten what it means to me. (Distant past artist) I'm celebrating a return to creativity, art and making, with this being the first art project I have been inspired and moved to make for a very long time. I was considering the idea of fairy tales and magic and the story of Alice in Wonderland. And drawing some parallels between her adventures and how I might have navigated my life experiences since becoming a SEN parent, especially realising that of my own Neurodivergence. 

The potions reflect the non-linear experience of acquiring identity, what is perceived as 'positive' or 'negative' over time can also be how our words feelings and thoughts and perceptions of ourselves are always morphing and we can re-interpret them as we grow and change. Fluid, changeable, bitter, sweet, beguiling and beautiful, like the contents of our bottles, our inner lives and identities, sometimes we save what we need for another moment of need and sometimes we wish to have more from an all giving sip. With new identities on the horizon, a chance to reflect past ones, perhaps also through a new lens, a new process, a gift given to me by my children, to be seen, to be rejuvenated.

Irene Ros @irenevseconomy

Je suis a yo-yo
Trying to circumvent the storm and feeling attached to a string over which you often have no control: a portrayal of life with a teenager.

Irene Ros is a mother of two, a theatre and performance practitioner and a researcher. She graduated from the MA Performance Design and Practice at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts, London) in 2018 and she is now a AHRC-SGSAH funded PhD student with the University of Edinburgh and the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.
Her work has always been inspired by politics, gender equality and the media, with a focus on the results of globalisation on people and places. Her practice includes engaging with small communities and creating the conditions for empowerment.
She ran the Italian theatre organisation Ursa Maior between 2002 and 2012, working as artistic director, director and producer. She is the co-founder of the charity Cut Moose, a collaboration dedicated to producing thought-provoking performances that highlight under-represented perspectives on contemporary narratives. Cut Moose’s projects were presented at the Rich Mix, Tête-à-Tête Opera Festival, Central Saint Martins.

Pia Jaime is a multidisciplinary Argentinian artist based in South London. She explores through photography, collage and drawing ideas on neurodiversity, mental health and feminism. Her sculpting practices includes found objects and tiles as a reflection on identity and inclusivity.

Pia is also a passionate Educator, a Community project leader and a Founder Mother of the award-winning project Maternal Journal.

Her work has been published by Shutterhub and the PhMuseum and she has exhibited nationally and internationally.

In 2022 Pia completed her first public commission, The Fabric of Society, combining Photography and mosaic techniques and it is situated in Sutton.

piajaime.com

instagram @jaimemariapia

Anne-Marie Briscombe is a London-based documentary photographer. She studied Psychology and has an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the London College of Communication. She is currently exploring the role community projects play in supporting mental health and wellbeing.

Anne-Marie creates long-term portrait-centered projects; Her portrait of ‘Delroy, the Volunteer Beekeeper’ was a Portrait of Britain 2021 Winner, and was also selected for the Photo Fringe ECO in Worthing and for SALON 22 at Photofusion, London.

She is a founding member of the Ink Collective and has recently exhibited at Diffusion - Wales’ International Festival of Photography; LOOK: Photo Biennial at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool; and Brighton’s Photo Fringe.

annemariebriscombe.co.uk

instagram @annemariebriscombe