BRISTOL.- This new exhibition brings together a selection of artists and photographers whose diverse work raises awareness of the complex relationships between the most pressing concerns of our time.

‘Intersectional Geographies advocates for a deeper understanding of multi-faceted overlaps between protecting and sustaining our planet’s ecosystems and the people situated within diverse geographical contexts, whether they be mining communities, rural landscapes, and/or home environments… The exhibitions asks questions, opens dialogue, and stimulates conversations that are representative of our time. Thus, creating a visual aesthetic and an atmospheric experience that will undoubtedly evoke empathy, knowledge, understanding and deeper insights’.
Curator Jacqueline Ennis-Cole

The term ‘intersectionality’ was coined by Black feminist Kimberlé Crenshaw to describe the multiple and overlapping experiences of oppression, human rights, and social justice. By bringing together this photographic and lens-based work, the group exhibition format allows for multiple stories and perspectives to be presented alongside within an inclusive environment.

WORKS ON DISPLAY

'Copper Geographies: Metallic Threads’ by Ignacio Acosta

Chile holds the world’s largest copper reserves —an essential commodity for nearly every industrial enterprise. These photographs depict Chilean geologies —shaped by deadly earthquakes and volcanic activity —and where large residues of toxic waste remain in the landscape after the raw copper is extracted and shipped around the globe.

‘The Rift: Fracking in the UK’ by Rhiannon Adam

The focus for this project is the community that has grown up around the epicentre of the UK’s fracking resistance at Preston New Road. Locals joined forces with climate campaigners on social and political grounds to protest against industrial invasive processes on their environment —ultimately the fracking process represents a continued investment in fossil fuels at a time when eliminating our reliance on them is crucial.

‘The Canary and the Hammer’ by Lisa Barnard

SOTRAMI, the largest global supplier of fairtrade gold has been beneficial to the lives of the women of Santa Filomena where the mining community is situated. However, artisan miners use mercury to purify the gold, which then enters the local ecosystems and food chains, with poisonous consequences for generations to come.

'Beneath Us’ by Jacqueline Ennis-Cole

This project examines a de-commissioned oil site in Nottinghamshire, where the natural land is reclaiming itself from industrial occupation. This is a place where order and chaos co-exist and where nature flexes her free will. The dark moods of the imagery seem to tell a primordial story.

‘Coal Story’ by Darek Fortas

‘Coal Story’ is an archival and photographic survey of two of the largest coal mining companies in the EU located in Silesia, the most industrialised part of Poland where Darek Fortas was born before settling in the UK. This project considers the role of the coal industry in toppling the communist regime in Poland.




‘Like Gold Dust ‘(2019) by Roshini Kempadoo

This work takes fictional narratives of two female friends from Guyana and Texas as its starting point to explore relationships between environments, women’s activism and present life. Guyana, where Kempadoo lived as a child, has fast become one of the largest offshore sites of oil and gas extraction, which links it to the oil rich state of Texas, where the work was created on a residency at Artspace in San Antonio.

The Host by Miranda Pennell

This film investigates the activities of British Petroleum (BP) in Iran, asking us to look, at images produced by the BP oil company and personal photos taken by the British staff in Iran —including the filmmaker’s parents. The film is about the stories we tell, the facts and fictions we live by – and their consequences.

Quarries of Wandering Stone: White Oil by Judy Rabinowitz Price

Judy Price’s film explores the quarries in the Occupied Palestine Territories as a physical, metaphorical and subjective space of displacement and cultural boundaries. This is the place where the excavation of a coveted white stone (‘white oil’) happens. It is also a visual document that traces colonialism and records the constant disruptions to the landscape.

Twenty – Eight Points from the series ‘Nitrate’ by Xavier Ribas

This series, explores the histories and legacies of British investment in Chilean nitrate mines between the 1870s and 1920s. The diptych on display, Twenty- Eight Points, depicts the prospective excavation of the remains of a 19th century school building where more than 300 nitrate workers were massacred in 1907 by the Chilean army, alongside a transcript of 28 demands presented by a delegation of nitrate works in 1904 which functions as a first-hand account of their living and work conditions.

‘Thanks Maggie’ and ‘The Pits of Nations: Black British Coal Miners’ by David Severn

Severn’s visual autobiography ‘Thanks Maggie’, explores a mining community in Nottinghamshire where he was born and grew up. ‘The Pit of Nations: Black British Coal Miners’ was commissioned by Norma Gregory to explore and give voice to representations of black miners’ stories in the UK.

‘Unsterile Clinic’ by Aida Silvestri

An in-depth investigation into Female Genital Mutilation through a series photographic images and interviews of East African female survivors. Silvestri sought an aesthetic method of soft leather, beads and stitch and then attached them onto the mouth areas of the participants silhouette portraits to present the sensitive and intense subject matter to a wider audience.

‘Coal Mining in the West Midlands’ by Janine Wiedel

A West Midlands Bursary in 1977 enabled Wiedel to document three regional collieries with the aid of an old VW van. During this historical period the coal industry was battling for survival with national protests and strikes. Her images describe the filthy and dreadful work conditions and the camaraderie among the black collar workers.