The Travelling World Is Not Arriving

Featuring work by the following artists

De’Anne Crooks, Raúl Valdivia Murgueytio, Sanah Iqbal, Krishan Patel, Ashwin Patel, Ismail Khokon, Nilupa Yasmin, Bharti Parmar, Justin Carey, Rebecca Orleans, Pritt Kalsi & Amrit Doll.

As the first wave of COVID-19 approached, we were conscious of how our communities were being disproportionately affected and yet under-represented both in terms of who was being interviewed about it but also regarding who was asking the questions.

The lack of inclusion and diversity in the media and the arts, whilst long-term and historical, seemed to be most apparent to us. Regrettably, even after many arts organisations, in the wake of the global Black Lives Matter movement, had pledged to be more inclusive. As a result, we undertook, with collaboration from Black Country Visual Arts and funding from the Arts Council, to create a range of opportunities for artists, from a cross-section of backgrounds, to respond directly to COVID-19 and the multiple ways it had affected their lives.

The funding enabled us to support two artists, a number which later grew to five with the support of Kala Phool, Slanguages, New Art Exchange and Birmingham City University. Alongside these established artists we also, through workshop-based training opportunities, worked with several new artists across the Midlands to help them produce bodies of photographic work. We believe that it is fundamental that those involved in commissioning and making work that is directly about our communities, have the lived experiences, knowledge and consent of those communities in order to reflect them in honest and
recognisable ways.

In this light, it has been a great pleasure for all of us at ReFramed to have been able to give these artists the platform and opportunity to respond to this moment in time. The following images in this publication reflect the approaches of both our Bursary Artists and photographic workshop participants. Through their eyes we get to see their lives, thoughts and feelings reflected to us in an enduring time that is still yet to pass.