Artist Statement

“A place without meaning is no place to be.”
Wayne Gerard Trotman

For me, my sense of place is where I spent my childhood and grew up – Manchester, UK. As this project was to explore ‘Sense of place’ I wanted to document where I grew up as it holds the most meaning to me and is where some of my favourite memories came from. To do this, I went back home to Manchester with my camera and went to the places I would go with my friends and family, documenting as I went along.

I decided to photograph in three main locations; The Northern Quatre, Canal Street and the ArtZu Gallery, this is because of these three areas being able to best present my experiences in Manchester. My aim was to mostly focus on street art and abstract landscape imagery by taking close up images and direct viewpoints to try and show how the city is seen through my eyes. I decided to follow this idea as Manchester is a very diverse city which has a strong sense of culture and full of unique photographic opportunities which I wouldn’t be able to replicate anywhere and receive a higher quality set of images. In addition to this, it was important to me to use a direct viewpoint as it gives the viewer that they are looking into the city how I would see it. Whilst capturing these images I had a strong, nostalgic feeling within me. This is how I knew I was responding to the theme in the best way possible for me, showing the places which made me who I am today.

I chose to present my photographs in sets of three, this is because I like the visual effect of having images which work well alongside each other in sets to produce the overall ‘Sense of Place’ portfolio. I think this idea worked well for me as I was able to document certain areas of Manchester and put the images together to produce a bigger image to display what Manchester means to me, and how it shows my sense of place.

Overall,  I am very pleased with my outcome as I was able to share my sense through a set of photographs whilst visually showing viewers where my identity came from and how my upbringing in this area shaped how I am as a person.

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