Artists Talk: Emi O’Connell and Jermaine Francis – rescheduled — Impressions Gallery

Join photographers Emi O’Connell and Jermaine Francis as they discuss their works in the exhibition Performing Histories / Histories Re-imagined. Learn how they used memory and ‘the archive’ to interrogate disturbing practices by religious institutions in the past.

In and then I ran, Emi O’Connell uses self-portraits, image, and text, to create an imagined visual archive of her grandmother’s memories running away from a mother and baby home in 1964, Ireland. Jermaine Francis explores the Bryan Heseltine archive housed at the Bodleain Library, Oxford. Once Upon a Time unravels the methods the Anglican Church and its missionary programme used to indoctrinate Black slaves in the Caribbean.

Performing Histories / Histories Re-imagined offers an insight into artistic practices that critically engage with the archive to re-address history and position neglected histories at the centre.

Their discussion will be chaired by Vivienne Gamble, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Peckham 24.

After the talk,  please join us for a drinks reception to celebrate the exhibition Performing Histories / Histories Re-Imagined from 3.00pm to 4.00pm.

Booking recommended, book via Art Tickets or call the gallery on 01274 737843.

Tickets are ‘pay what you can afford,’ suggested donation of £3 or £5.

Impressions Gallery is a charity and we fundraise for everything we do. If you enjoy our work, please support us by making a donation when you book your ticket if you are able. If you book a free ticket when you can afford to donate, it makes it harder for us to provide financial flexibility to those who need it. Thanks.

Performing Histories / Histories Reimagined is co-curated by Peckham 24 and Impressions Gallery.

Photo: From the series Once Upon a Time: a bible, multiple protagonists and a propagation of the gospel in racial time, 2024 – ongoing © Jermaine Francis.

Artists

  • Artists Talk: Emi O’Connell and Jermaine Francis – rescheduled — Impressions Gallery

    Emi O'Connell

    Artist

    O’Conell’s work focuses on equality and women’s health. She is particularly interested in phototherapy and using visual arts as a way to sensitively approach topics of trauma. O'Connell combines self- portraiture, documentary photography re-enactment, and other performative elements throughout her research-based work. Emi’s intimate and sensitive approach uses primarily analogue photography and cameraless techniques such as lumen printing.

  • Artists Talk: Emi O’Connell and Jermaine Francis – rescheduled — Impressions Gallery

    Jermaine Francis

    Artist

    Francis is a London-based photographer who works within the discourse of documentary, landscape, portraiture and moving image. He explores our physical and historical, psychological negotiation of space, through subjects such as power, class, race, social, political and their visual manifestations.