East Meets West: 22 Exhibition and Public Programme

FORMAT22 Presents:

Over a sixth-month period, 22 UK-based emerging photographers have taken part in the East Meets West Masterclass programme organised by GRAIN Projects, FORMAT and QUAD.

Through regularly sharing their work with each other, the individuals nurtured thematic and practice-based connections, becoming part of a valuable creative community.

Working as EAST MEETS WEST Collective, the photographers have shared and expanded these connections by exhibiting together and engaging their audience in a public programme of talks and workshops, as part of FORMAT22 Presents.

Their exhibition 22 will reflect how connections and relationships are intrinsic to their wide-ranging practices. The group will look back, sensitively exploring family histories, belonging and cultural identity.

They will question their alliance to society and investigate feminism, violence and the male gaze. They will address the environmental crisis and examine the politics of land, erosion and ecological issues, expressing these narratives through fantasy, exploration and fact.

Their accompanying public programme will be community-focused, including workshops on lumen printing, zine-making and photo walks. These engaging creative events will be suitable for individuals, groups and families, with an emphasis on encouraging connection through creativity.

Online talks will run throughout the exhibition period, during which the artists will discuss their thought-provoking work with each other.

Follow @eastmeetswestexhibition on Instagram or @East_Mts_West on Twitter to see work from the exhibiting artists.

Adam Bennett

Adam Bennett is a photographic artist based in the West Midlands. He holds an MA in Documentary Photography from the University of South Wales. His landscape photographs, in combination with research, explore themes relating to land use, ecology and representations of heritage.

Ania Juszczyk

Ania Juszczyk is a photographer based between London and Krakow. She holds an MA degree from UCL in History of Art and an MA from University of St Andrews in Art History and Film Studies. Her work ranges from fashion to documentary, characterised more by the style than the subject.

Catriona Dunnett

Caitriona Dunnett is an Irish artist, with a degree from Nottingham Trent University and a MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. She investigates memory and its subjective, personal and forgotten narratives through alternative photographic processes. Dunnett has exhibited nationally and internationally, and PhotoIreland has published her work.

Camille Relet

Camille Relet is a French artist based in Wales, who graduated with a Master’s in Photography – Contemporary Dialogues from Swansea College of Arts.  Her practice explores the notion of identity in relation to language, territories, and memory. She considers visual connections to philosophy, literature, and mythology to create poetic narratives.

Cheryl Newman

Cheryl Newman is an artist and independent curator of photography living in London. Her practice explores the emotional landscape of love, desire and family history. Her work mixes archive and storytelling to describe and examine photographic process and representation as both object and illusion. She recently completed an MA in Photography Arts at the University of Westminster (Distinction).

Christian Jago

Christian Jago is a set designer and photographer who creates representations of fantastical worlds. He uses his practice to respond to the world around him, constructing immersive spaces through which people can temporarily step outside of reality. He strives to create works which compel people to stop, wonder and smile.

Clare Hewitt

Clare Hewitt is a Photographer, Lecturer and Archivist based in Birmingham, UK. In her ongoing work, Everything in the forest is the forest, Clare has collaborated with a community of 12 oak trees to visually understand how they thrive through connection and communication, to inspire similar behaviour amongst human beings.

Ed Sykes

Lives and works in London. Ed Sykes studied at Nottingham Trent University and  London College of Printing. His photographs have been included in exhibitions at Association of Photographers,  Four Corners Gallery, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, National Portrait  Gallery, Photofusion and The Printspace.

Elena Kollatou & Leonidas Toumpanos

Elena Kollatou and Leonidas Toumpanos are documentary photographers. Elena holds a BA in Photography and Film from Edinburgh Napier University, and Leonidas holds an MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography from the University of Arts London. They are working collaboratively on long-term projects and aiming to engage viewers in a creative discourse about better comprehension of nature, society and human existence. Their work has been published and exhibited in Month of Photography Los Angeles, Athens Photo Festival, Brighton Photo Fringe Festival, Rovinj Photo Days, and Manifesto Photo Festival, among others.

Leah Band

Leah Band is a photographer from the UK with 15 years’ experience working professionally in advertising and fashion photography. She completed her MA Photojournalism & Documentary Photography (LCC) in 2021 and is currently developing her personal practice. Her work explores themes of landscape, politics, power and personal narratives.

Mandy Williams

Mandy Williams received her MA Photography from LCC, University of the Arts London in 2021, previously studying Art History at Warwick and Film at Goldsmiths College. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the UK and overseas. Her book, Sea Level, was published in 2020.

Nat Wilkins

Nat Wilkins is a documentary photographer based in North East England. He is currently focusing his lens on fatherhood, rural hinterlands and the culture of upland agriculture. Seeing photography both moving and still, as inherently powerful tools in the weaving of narratives, he plays with elements of both to present work in new and innovative ways.

Nieves Mingueza

Spanish-British artist. Her conceptually driven and intimate practice often interweaves  images with research, documentary photography, archival material, collage, text, film,  and installation. Bridging the space between the personal and political, she explores and  activates the archives to address social and gender issues.

Phil Hill

Phil Hill is a photographic artist whose practice is concerned with narrative interpretation, connection, and identity. Phil has worked extensively with a range of clients internationally and now dedicates his time to producing long form projects and teaching.

Phillipa Klaiber

Phillipa Klaiber is a long-form documentary photographer and artist. Her most recent work, Vorest (2018-2020) is a meditation on the changing landscape of an ancient forest, where culture and nature are inescapably linked. In 2020, Phillipa completed an MA in Photography at UWE (Bristol).

Pippa Healy

Pippa Healy is an award-winning photographer, artist and printmaker based in London. Her practice is primarily diaristic – and is concerned with themes around loss, longing, violence and grief.

Pippa has exhibited extensively in the UK and abroad. Her zines are held in The Martin Parr Foundation and available to buy at The Photographer Gallery in London.

Simona Ciocarlan

Simona Ciocarlan is a Romanian visual artist and researcher. Her work investigates the interweave of collective memory, cultural heritage, and identity. Interested in materiality and the poetics of photography she explores how the medium can transcend traditional forms of image-making. Simona is currently undertaking an MA in Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales.

Sofia Yala

Sofia is an Angolan/Portuguese photographer based in Derby. Recently graduated from the University of Derby in 2021 with a MA in Film & Photography.  Sofia had her portfolio highlighted on the FOAM magazine and The Eyes . Yala artwork explores archival material combined with unexpected encounters in life.

Susanne Hakuba

Susanne Hakuba uses photography & writing to investigate traces of the past and make visible missing links with the present. In the “The mercy of late birth” part of her ongoing “Don’t mention the war” project Susanne examines how the Third Reich has impacted her generation of Germans, and how this generation is uncovering their family’s true (Third Reich) narratives.

Wing Ka Ho-Jimmi

Wing Ka Ho Jimmi (b. 1993) is a photographer based in Hong Kong and the UK. His works document historical landscapes and portraits in the community, investigating the political issues and social changes. His latest project, ‘So close and yet so far away’ documents Hong Kong society through diverse personal identities and geographic locations. Utilising the classical genres of portrait and landscape, he identifies and questions the identity crisis associated with the socio-political situation in Hong Kong.

Zara Pears

Zara Pears is a New Zealand born photographer based in London. She creates black and white photographs inspired by the poetic and surreal. Her practice explores connections between the physical body, the psychological and photography’s relationship to time, memory and fiction. She was awarded a Masters in Photography from the University of Brighton, England in 2019.

The exhibition is additionally supported by Beyond Print