Ahead of the second biennial Bristol Photo Festival, which will return to Bristol in October, the full exhibition programme has now been released.
The international festival of photography – this year carrying the theme ‘The World on A Wave’ – is supported by numerous funders including the British Council, Arts Council England, the National Lottery’s Heritage Lottery Fund, and Quartet Community Foundation.
The 2021 edition drew over 200,000 visitors, while championing local independent spaces alongside Bristol’s major visual arts institutions.
Independent journalism
is needed now More than ever
Keep our city’s journalism independent. Become a supporter member today.
Taking place across the city and beyond, all the exhibitions will be free, with donations welcome.
While they all run for at least a month, some extend towards the end of the year and into 2025. Bristol24/7 takes a closer look at some of the many highlights:
Featuring a selection of images made by the internationally renowned photographer over 25 years, Monument will be seen in Europe for the first time in this collection – which has been produced in conjunction with the Martin Parr Foundation.
The exhibition notes pronounce it “an elegy to time, to the late light of Sydney streets, the movement of people and the circling of moths as night falls”, characterising Parke’s style as “impressionistic, long-form work that explores themes of identity, place and community, often working in rural Australia”.
Trent Parke, from the series ‘Monument’ – photo: © Trent Parke
Nigel Poor: The San Quentin Project – The Gallery Weston, October 16 – November 17
While teaching a history of photography class at the notorious state prison, San Quentin in California, Poor was inspired to expand her work into a long-term collaborative project in which she worked with inmates to respond to the prison’s image archive.
This exhibition will also include some work from the BPF & IC Visual Lab educational project, which has been undertaken in collaboration with Prison Education working prisons in the South West.
Nigel Poor, from the series ‘The San Quentin Project’- photo: © Nigel Poor
Herbert Shergold: Now Keep Quite Still – The Laundrette Gallery, October 16 – November 17
A commercial photographer in Bristol in the 1950s and 60s, Shergold used the analogue photographic technique of making images using glass plate negatives to make the working-class subjects of his studio appear like Hollywood film stars.
Supported by Marcel Brent (Vintage Photographs) and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, this collection of his work was curated by local photo historian, Hedy van Erp, who learned of Shergold’s work when contacted by a collector.
Herbert Shergold’s collection – photo: © Vintage Photographs
With a longstanding interest in documenting agricultural practices in Andalusia, in this series Ribeira captures ‘the sea of plastic’, where a mass of greenhouses are utilised to mass produce out-of-season vegetables for European countries including Germany and the UK. Her work shows up a system that often leads to the exploitation of cheap labour.
Bandia Ribeira, from the series ‘No Home Without Fire’ – photo: © Bandia Ribeira
Inuuteq Storch: Porcelain Souls and Keepers of the Ocean – Centrespace Gallery, October 16 – November 17
Storch will be showing two collections of work in this, his debut solo exhibition in the UK – made possible with the support of the Danish Arts Foundation.
Porcelain Souls collates photographs and letters from his parents while they were in Sisimiut, Greenland – where he grew up – and Aarhus, Denmark, respectively. Offering up an authentic portrait of life in Sisimiut, Keepers of the Ocean arrives at Bristol Photo Festival after it was showcased at the prestigious Venice Biennale 2024.
Inuuteq Storch, from the series ‘Porcelain Souls’ – photo: © Inuuteq Storch
Billy H.C Kwok, Jay Lau, Lau Wai: The Weight of Witness – The Royal Photographic Society, October 16 – December 22
In this joint project produced in collaboration with WMA and the RPS, a trio of contemporary artists respond to photographic archives of Hong Kong, inviting the viewer to consider the myriad ways in which Hong Kong captures the imagination.
Kwok’s new work is inspired by a historic building built in 1953 and destroyed in 2004, called The Tiger Balm Mansion, in which were held a series of dioramas showing the treatment of souls in the Ten Halls of Judgement – a tenet of Chinese and Buddhist mythology. He blends archival photographs of the building’s sculpture garden with newly created images, incorporating AI-generated representations of the afterlife.
Billy H.C. Kwok, ‘Hellscape – A Dystopian Panorama’, 2024 – photo: courtesy of the artist and WMA
In Lau Wai’s aesthetic there is a palpable tension between the real and the unreal. The artist blends historical and computer-generated imagery in order to interrogate the artifice of both traditional and contemporary representations of Hong Kong.
Lau Wai, ‘I’m just Wan Chai girl’, 2018 – image: courtesy of the artist
Jay Lau’s idea of the identity of Hong Kong was blurred by the fact that the stories, traditions and memories of the community in which he grew up belonged to a place that was already outgrowing them. Using mixed media including woodblock-printed fabrics, derived from archival images of everyday Hong Hong, he brings history into the present realm, while revealing an ever-changing society.
Jay Lau, ‘Composition 1’, 2024 – image: courtesy of the artist and WMA
Rinko Kawauchi: At the edge of the everyday world – Arnolfini, October 16 – February 9 2025
Produced in conjunction with Arnolfini and with support from The Japan Foundation, Kawauchi’s exhibition brings together work made over 20 years.
The images selected range from Icelandic volancoes to the snowy landscapes of Hokkaido, and more domestic shots made during the COVID-19 lockdowns, celebrating the beauty in the everyday.
Rinko Kawauchi, from the series ‘Illuminance’ – photo: © Rinko Kawauchi
Reprising the project that took place in the summer of 2023, images made by a group of photographers with strong ties to Bristol’s historic high streets and neighbourhoods will be exhibited together at the M Shed.
Participants included Khali Ackford, Michael Alberry, Mohamed Hassan, Chris Hoare, Jade Carr-Daley and Kirsty Mackay.
People hanging out, watching the goats in Stoke Park, Lockleaze – photo: Michael Alberry
Bristol Photo Festival second edition: The World on a Wave will have its opening week on October 16-20, and will then be at venues across Bristol this autumn. All exhibitions are free, with donations welcome.
For the full programme, visit www.bristolphotofestival.org.
Main photo: Trent Parke (from ‘Monument’)
Read next: