Pose and Play

This art project, sharing our playful and caring community, was made possible by funding from Leeds Inspired.

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What inspired us to create this project?

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In recent years our nursery, like many education settings, has employed a photography firm to visit and take standardised pictures of our children and staff. In addition to the high cost of purchasing this kind of photograph, our families and trustees of the nursery felt there could be a more fun alternative that highlighted our personalities.

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In the context of the global pandemic, where many people haven’t left their home area, we wanted to bring our community together safely in an engaging activity. We understand the impact of the pandemic on parents and essential workers but also on artists and wanted to provide work for a professional photographer whilst minimising costs to families. Leeds Inspired were able to help us by covering the costs of a photographer's time such as to plan and run these sessions. 

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With this photography project, we were inspired by Gerald Donne Photography, a portrait photographer on Chapeltown Road whose work featured in the recent exhibitions of Eulogy and Back to Life by the Jamaica Society. We also took inspiration from Birmingham’s Handsworth Self-Portrait project, devised by Derek Bishton, Brian Homer and the late John Reardon. 

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As a community nursery, we aim to work with local people and organisations building strong relationships. During a call-out for ideas on different approaches to our usual activities, we identified Jonathan Turner​, a freelance photographer, artist and parent based in our local community. His previous work Street Studio perfectly captured what we were looking for.

If you liked this exhibition, please click the links above to see similar work.

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“We aim for this to be an opportunity to not only strengthen connections in our community in Chapeltown after the restrictions but also to have a positive start to 2021 and create something that we can share with loved ones -all those people we have seen less or haven’t seen at all.”

Sarah Killoran, Nursery Manager. 

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This exhibition will be available online until 30th June 2021. These images cannot be used without the expressed permission of the copyright owners. Please do not reproduce, publish or distribute these images without permission.