Past Exhibition
Place Where We Dwell by Gavin Wallace
3 - 9 September 2020
Place Where We Dwell is my ongoing Personal project showcasing some of my home town residents that are making a difference in the community in any small way. As the decades go by, with the sense of community all but gone, who of us truly know our neighbours? Maybe a polite ‘Hello’ but that is as far as it goes. With this project I want to showcase the people in my hometown of Northampton that are making a difference in some way. Over the last 5 years I have photographed writers, mental health nurses, shop owners, musicians, artists, charity workers all calling Northampton their home. I approach each shoot with two styles in mind, one is environmental and the other is studio, capturing two sides to each person. The aim for this project is to have a local exhibition celebrating their efforts in continuing to make this forgotten town a better place to live.
As with most of my personal projects it started with an unexpected encounter. On one hot day in July I returned from a shoot and was unloading equipment outside my house when a neighbour from a few doors up came running out of her house. She said “Please help me I’ve got a big problem in the house and I don't know what to do.” I followed her and was confronted with a waterfall pouring from her kitchen ceiling. After what seemed like hours I found the outside water mains and managed to turn it off. Helping with the clean up I chatted to Felicia for a while and she told me about her life growing up in Cape Town, raising her 3 granddaughters and working as a Mental Health Nurse. This was the beginning of Place Where We Dwell.
View more portrait and music imagery from Gavin here
Read our interview with Gavin here
Image © Gavin Wallace