A series of artists’ films
England’s New Lenses 2021
Documentary series
Artists’ Films
Photoworks
x English Heritage
“England’s New Lenses is a collection of work commissioned from four outstanding young photographers to showcase their unique visions of iconic English Heritage sites. The project provided a platform for four young artists to discover, explore and create new visual vocabularies for heritage sites that spoke to them.
Artists Kemka Ajoku, Abena Appiah, Megan Mechelle Dalton and Mia Parker-Tang each chose the sites and themes for their work.”
— Photoworks,
https://photoworks.org.uk/
Mia Parker-Tang
— Tintagel Castle
Mia Parker-Tang, 23, is a British-Chinese photographer whose work ‘There Lies The World’ explores her immediate surroundings and the cyclical nature of time. She focuses on her own relationship with England and a sense of shared history through the coastal location of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall. A place where time seems to have slowed down, this site gave her the perfect opportunity to explore connections between the past and present.
Megan Mechelle Dalton, 22, is a Yorkshire-based photographer who re-tells the Wars of the Roses by reflecting on themes still present in society today. Set at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire, ‘Both Sides of the Rose’ gives visibility to the women of the 15th century and highlights the impact of societal division both in the past and today.
Megan Mechelle Dalton
— Middleham Castle
Abena Appiah
— Hadrian’s Wall
Abena Appiah, 23, is a London-based photographer and filmmaker. Her series ‘From The Maghreb’ re-imagines the presence of the North African Romans in this country in an attempt to highlight Africa’s connections to English history. Her work features a series of portraits presented alongside landscapes that capture the environment surrounding Hadrian’s Wall through the eyes of a North African Roman.
Kemka Ajoku, 22, is a portrait photographer based in London. His series ‘Finding Common Ground’ highlights the lives of Black British people, showcasing those living in the UK following the Windrush era and exploring the migration of Africans to this country. Shot at Wrest Park, to the artist, this site serves as a prime example of the imported traditions that have shaped England’s history and influenced Britain’s culture.
Kemka Ajoku
— Wrest Park
Documentary
England’s New Lenses 2021
England’s New Lenses is a collection of work commissioned from four outstanding young photographers to showcase their unique visions of iconic English Heritage sites. The project provided a platform for four young artists to discover, explore and create new visual vocabularies for heritage sites that spoke to them. The artist’s explorations resulted in images which contribute a new layer of interpretation, understanding and experience to each heritage site they chose.
Artists Kemka Ajoku, Abena Appiah, Megan Mechelle Dalton and Mia Parker-Tang each chose the sites and themes for their work. Originally conceived as a digital-only project, the outstanding quality of the work led us to develop an on-site exhibition at Wrest Park, Bedfordshire in the summer of 2021, which reached a wide audience and was covered in the national press.
England’s New Lenses is a collaboration between English Heritage, Photoworks and Shout Out Loud, a Kick the Dust project supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. England’s New Lenses received additional support from the DCMS Youth Accelerator Fund.
https://photoworks.org.uk/englands-new-lenses-2/
https://www.shoutoutloud.org.uk/project/englands-new-lenses/
