As a group we asked if Sarah, programme leader, if she would write the overarching statement for Degree Show. She kindly accepted and provided us with a really powerful piece of writing which said everything we could of hoped it would!
54.9064˚ N 2.9316 ˚ W identifies the location where these photographers first met. This is the site where a commitment was made to the next three years (in some cases four), a commitment made by each individual to their own future, to each other and to their collective success. It is from here that each will depart to new and singular futures. This is the point of arrival and departure.
These have been the strangest of times; entire populations moved to enforced confinement, proximity to others at once too close, yet too distant to be meaningful. The photographers presenting their work here respond to our changing world with a perceptive eye, always critically engaged with the human condition. The images we are offered range across a landscape of human experience: from a close analysis of the lived environment to a critical questioning of the Anthropocene; from introspective enquiry to the expansive possibility of dream.
In this image-saturated world where photographs proliferate it is imperative that photographers offer more than a moment captured. The photographers in this exhibition are curious and critically intelligent, they articulate a language that enables insight, understanding and the possibility of thinking anew. We need the eyes and minds of these image-makers as they will be the ones to make sense of our world. At this point in human history, these photographers are uniquely qualified for this task.
It has been my privilege to accompany this collective on their journey, and it is with great pride that I introduce them as they embark on their next adventure.
Dr Sarah Bonner
Principal Lecturer and Programme Leader BA (Hons) Photography