LONDON, ENGLAND.- The fifth exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery's acclaimed Reaching Out, Drawing In programme, Cherish looks at the family photo album from the perspective of Chinese families living in the UK today. Working with professional photographers and using family portraits from the National Portrait Gallery's Collection as well as their own family albums as creative starting points, families from across the UK have been invited to explore what family means to them, using photography and other media. The resulting exhibition is a diverse celebration of family and cultural history.

Developed in partnership with the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester, Cherish has evolved out of three-community based projects, each led by a professional Chinese photographer: Pamela So worked with families in Glasgow; Yan Preston with families in Manchester; and Anthony Lam with families in London.

Each family has brought a different approach, and their own perspective to the project. For many of the families, food and allotments were a recurring theme, and the Chong family in Glasgow represent themselves with a purpose built potting shed, decorated with images of their Malaysian Chinese family. Also from Glasgow, the Ang family have used digital photography to document the important journey back to their roots in Hong Kong. In Manchester, the Lee family has created a timeline of their family history using intriguing original family photographs, and the Lam family has interpreted the brief by building a 3D family tree complete with branches and leaves. In London, families from the Soho Family Centre used postcards to take us on a journey to their version of a traditional British seaside holiday in Clacton, while the father of one family, a Chinese chef, has cleverly used the food in his restaurant as a metaphor for the family and Chinese family values.

Photographic family portraits from the National Portrait Gallery Collection, displayed alongside the new work include Charlie Chaplin and his family, Laurence Olivier with his newborn baby and a 19th century print of Rosetti and his family.

Cherish follows Fame!, Look at Me, Family Faces and Inner Picture as the fifth exhibition in the Reaching Out, Drawing In series, a sustained programme of new audience development which seeks to give wider access to the Gallery's collections through innovative and engaging interpretation. The last exhibition in the programme, Four Corners, opening in March 2007, will look at London's rich cultural make-up.

Reaching Out, Drawing In has been made possible by the generosity of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Sarah Champion, CEO, of the Chinese Arts Centre says: 'Cherish has provided a unique opportunity for the Chinese community to represent themselves within a national gallery. The families have all worked with leading Chinese photographers who have given them the skills and confidence to document their own lives. This is a really important exhibition as it presents a realistic glimpse of Chinese contemporary life in Britain and draws our attention to the similarities, and differences, between these families and our own.'

Rebecca Connock, Reaching Out, Drawing In Project Manager, says: 'The insights brought to the project by the participating families and the three photographers have been compelling, and make for a truly rich and varied exhibition.'