‘In this Place’ – a photograph of Alexanderplatz Berlin © Allan Grainger

A Sense of Place – selected works by Allan Grainger and Gabrielle Farah at Lucy Bell Gallery

Place in general concerns a number of facets both objective and subjective. A sense of place refers to the subjective feelings associated with a particular place, feelings that are evoked by both insiders and outsiders. These images are about a sense of place from the perspective of cultural geography – specifically, understanding a place as a way of seeing and framing the world according to what and who is said to belong where.

‘Everything in its place’ is a contested idea in these images – temporal shifts and disparate juxtapositions challenge the notions of permanence.

Allan Grainger has been practicing photography for the last forty years. However, it is only recently that he began a photographic art practice, with works shown during Photo Espana and the Brighton Photo Fringe.

The work on show here is part of an on going project ‘In This Place’ that looks at culturally significant places over many days. Observations and photographic sketches are montaged together to produce a single image that considers the flow of people within a given place, with the intention of bringing about a new narrative formed by an empirical, historical and cultural understanding of the place.

© Gabrielle Farah – Bringing Home the War

Gabrielle Farah is photographic artist working in the field of digitally constructed images that question accepted narratives, people displacement and visual veracity.

Gabrielle started her photographic career in 2011. She was selected to be part of the East London International Photography Festival 2011 and 2012. Her work has been exhibited throughout Brighton and was featured as part of the Brighton Photo Fringe 2012, where she was shortlisted for the Danny Wilson Memorial Award.

Her current project Bringing Home the War began in 2013. The work is a collaboration with frontline photojournalist Medyan Dairieh.

It explores traditional quintessential English landscape, which aims to interrupt anticipated interpretations of conventional narrative with the unexpected, stimulating debate and at the same time questioning the verity of content.

The photographs, rather than being a romantic cliché of Englishness in fact introduce the complexities, diversity and ambiguities of our modern world.

A Sense of Place runs until 31 May. On Saturday 24 May, from 2–4pm, both photographers will be in conversation with photographer Alexander Brattell. Capacity is limited, so please contact the gallery to book a place.

The gallery is open Wednesday – Saturday 11am–4pm
or by appointment on 07979 407629

Lucy Bell Gallery, 46 Norman Road, St Leonards-on-Sea TN38 0EJ
www.lucy-bell.com
Tel: 01424 434828 or 07979 407629
Email: gallery@lucy-bell.com

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