Photography offers us huge potential in community spaces, opening up opportunity for conversations and reflections about our experiences and about who we are. There’s a long history of this kind of work that I’m really interested in, and I’m always looking for ways to develop my own practice. Wendy Ewald’s Portraits and Dreams, Anthony Luvera’s Residency or the work of Jo Spence are all touch points for my own developing work in this field.

So what does this kind of work look like? Collaboration can mean different things to different people, but for me it is about relationships, skills and energy. I work to create safe spaces in which people can be sociable, learn new skills and explore visual ways of articulating experience.

Knowledge is also key, for example around how to operate equipment, the work of other artists, or a sense of the history of community photography. Such understanding can transform a group’s way of thinking about what is possible, opening up new ways of seeing and thinking about experiences, and new ways of expression that were not on the table before.

Bringing such thinking into a safe, kind and welcoming space in which people feel heard and appreciated allows ideas to flourish and creativity to blossom.

Over the last decade or more I’ve been experimenting and working on many such creative projects, work that has taken me to Palestine to work with young women studying particle physics, to inner city London and a project with neurodivergent young people and Hackney Museum, to a Doncaster hotel and a group of young Afghan refugees, to the Dearne Valley and a farming community tilling the land above the South Yorkshire coalfield and many other projects besides.

In keeping with all this, I’m currently working on a project called fILMfAM. fILMfAM is a community film and photography project on the Gleadless Valley Estate in Sheffield, and is all about creating a space for people’s views to be heard, and offering photography and film as a means of expression. You can follow fILMfAM on Instagram here.

Otherwise, I’m always on the lookout for organisations and community groups to work with. Please do reach out to chat if this work interests you or if you have any ideas you’d like to discuss. It’s through working together that we can change the world!