ReFramed: Activism and Publishing — Impressions Gallery

ReFramed, the Midlands-based photography network for Black, Asian and people of colour, discuss activism  and publishing. Featuring Andrew Jackson, Anand Chhabra and Jagdish Patel, chaired by Sebah Chaudhry. Programmed as part of Impressions Gallery’s Online Photobook Fair 2020.

ReFramed has been established by a team of award-winning photographers and curators who believe that visual arts can play a critical role in shaping civic and contemporary attitudes, initiating collaborative conversations, and changing prevailing thoughts about race, our local environment and our communities.

Their goals are to collaborate with individuals and community groups, and build a network with visual artists from Black, Asian and other communities of colour. They say, “ReFramed will develop collaboration within visual art communities, as well as building links and bridges between communities of colour. Our work is committed to providing a safe and supportive environment, with a culture of respect and mutual support, which reflects the diversity within our community”.

Biographies

  • Sebah Chaudhry

    Sebah Chaudry

    Sebah is a Freelance Creative Producer. She is experienced in working at international world class festivals, projects and events. She is currently Community Engagement Officer on Tape Letters, a project that explores the practice of sending and receiving messages by cassette tape as a mode of communication by Pakistanis who migrated to the UK between 1960 - 1980.

    She was previously Creative Producer on an international British Council funded project with Ffotogallery, The Place I Call Home, connecting the UK to the Gulf region, culminating in 10 exhibitions from September 2019 - March 2020 in 7 countries. In 2019, Sebah curated a show by Alina Kisina at Diffusion Festival in Wales.

    From 2014 – 2017, Sebah was the Festival Coordinator at FORMAT Festival, the UK’s largest contemporary photography festival. She was a key member in the delivery of the biennial, working on exhibitions, events, the UK’s largest portfolio review and other FORMAT projects in the UK and internationally. She still produces projects at FORMAT Festival.

    She has previously worked with Photo Beijing, Beijing; Unseen Platform, Amsterdam; Kasselfotobook Festival, Kassel; Fotofestiwal, Łódz; Rhubarb-Rhubarb, Birmingham; Dong Gang, South Korea and Fotofest, Houston.

    Sebah is an avid networker and an advocate for the promotion of emerging artists, particularly BAME artists/POC, encouraging both artists and others to get involved in the art scene. Currently UK editor for thephotoexhibitionarchive.com, Berlin, Chair of Advisory Board for 1623 theatre company, Derby, Steering Group member for FORMAT Festival, Derby and Board Member, Redeye, The Photography Network, Manchester.

  • Portrait of Andrew Jackson

    Andrew Jackson

    Andrew Jackson’s works negotiate explorations of selfhood, representation and narration within intimate and personal interventions, which focus on transnational migration, belonging, displacement and collective memory.

    As the art historian Professor Eddie Chambers has written “British life has had the disastrous effect of immigrants not being routinely regarded as sensitive human beings, but being instead cast as vexatious problems. Jackson’s work restores humanity to people from whom this critical characteristic has been routinely withheld or withdrawn. And in restoring humanity, a thousand stories of life can be, and are, told.”

    Jackson is a recipient of the month-long Light Work / Autograph ABP (AIR) International Photography Residency in Syracuse, New York and is a graduate of the MA Documentary photography program at Newport in Wales. In 2018 Jackson was shortlisted for the Elliott Erwitt Fellowship and the Magnum Foundation Social Justice fellowship and in the past has been a nominee for the Prix Pictet award.

    His works are held in both International and National collections of photography such as the United Kingdom Government Art Collection, the Garman Ryan Collection, Light Work Collection at Syracuse University, Autograph ABP Collection, Rugby Museum & Art Gallery, in the process of being acquired by Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, as well as being held in a range of private collections.

    He is a qualified lecturer FAHE/PGCE and was previously a co-founder and co-director of both IC Visual Lab and Some Cities, participatory photography companies in the UK.

  • ReFramed: Activism and Publishing — Impressions Gallery

    Anand Chhabra

    Anand Chhabra is a co-founder, director and the incumbent Chair at Black Country Visual Arts and other funded work in the last few years. Anand initiated and profiled the ‘Apna Heritage Archive’ project winning a national award for best New Archive in the UK in 2017 from Community Archives and Heritage Group.

    In 2018 Anand was shortlisted for Magnum Foundation’s Photography in Collaboration: Migration and Religion and was been nominated for Prix Pictet 2019 on both occasions for his personal photographic work SUPNAA: Dreams of our Fathers. Anand recently worked on Historic England’s project ‘Picturing Lockdown’ in the Midlands as one ten regional photographers in the UK responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. He has been assigned to document his local area as the photographer working in the Midlands.

    He has also recently worked with the National Trust, Arts Council England, Worcestershire Archaeology Archives Service, British Council, Heritage Lottery Fund, Living Memory project. University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton Archives, Dudley College, GRAIN photo hub & Multistory.

  • Jagdish Patel

    Jagdish Patel

    Jagdish Patel is interested in issues related to socially engaged art, anti-racism and archives. He was raised in the Midlands, and worked in London as the Deputy Director of the human rights charity, the Monitoring Group. His work is firmly located within the realms of portraiture and documentary, but through a process of collaborative art practice. Much of his practice involves working within working class communities, and he is keen to ensure that the process of making images is empowering for the people taking part in the projects.

    Over the past few years he has undertaken projects with people from the Gypsy community, Portuguese farm workers, Asian football clubs, Northern Soul fans, victims of racial violence, Muslim War Veterans, and Punjabi bar owners in the Black Country. Jagdish has also worked on issues relating to arts and mental well-being for nearly a decade.

    He graduated with an MA Photography from De Montfort University, Leicester. He is an Associate member of the Royal Photography Society (RPS), and Primary in Nottingham. He was also one of the founders of ‘Off Centre : Nottingham Centre for Photography and Social Engagement’.