The Independent Eye
‘A documentary photograph is not a factual photograph per se. It is a photograph which carries the full meaning and significance of the episode.’
Dorothea Lange
The theme of the first Festival is ‘The Independent Eye’. This celebrates photography as an art-form that stands alone from others. Photography offers artists a unique ability to present personal viewpoints and perspectives, reflections on the world, and new artistic and technical approaches.
This also reflects Frome’s long-standing themes. ‘The Frome Independent’ market is the largest in the South West, and the town proudly has had an Independent Council since 2011 (‘flatpack democracy’).
ALL EXHIBITIONS ARE FREE ENTRY – PLEASE JUST CHECK THE OPENING TIMES
Aljoscha
26th June – 13th July 2022 (daily)
Aljoscha is a Ukrainian-Russian artist based in Germany whose practice spans drawing, painting, sculpture and spatial installation. He creates biomorphic maquettes called ‘bioisms’. The series presented had to pass multiple checkpoints before being installed in 13 Ukrainian asylums and special schools as beacons of hope during the current war. This exhibition is the second international showing of the work after Aljoscha’s representation at Photo London.
Bioism or biofuturism represents his attempt to create new living forms and a new aesthetics of future organic life. It is an effort to produce art based on vitality, multiplicity and complexity, and the artist regards each of his works as a living being.
Exhibition courtesy of the Shtager Gallery, London.
At the Rook Lane Chapel Gallery, Frome. Sunday, June 26th – Wednesday, July 13th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry.
Chris Chapman
21st June – 10th July 2022 (daily)
In the winter of 1975 Chris moved to Dartmoor, since when he has documented aspects of Dartmoor life. His photographs reflect traditional skills inherent in the population and emphasise the accumulation of knowledge associated with age and customs.
His photography has been widely recognised and is represented in both public and private collections, including those of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Arts Council England, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the International Center of Photography, New York.
At the Round Tower, Black Swan Arts, Frome. Tuesday, June 21st – Sunday, July 10th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry.
Danny North
26th June – 13th July 2022 (daily)
The exhibition is the first time that Danny has exhibited his music work. One the UK’s top music photographers and videographers, his work ranges from studio portraits, album covers, editorial, magazines and live gigs. From Blur and Oasis, to U2, Muse, Dave Grohl, and The 1975.
Danny’s portrait work was selected for the 2017 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, displayed at the National Portrait Gallery, 2018’s Creative Review’s Photography Annual, and the 2019 Portrait of Britain award.
This exhibition is supported by
At the Rook Lane Chapel Gallery, Frome. Sunday, June 26th – Wednesday, July 13th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry.
Hanna-Katrina Jędrosz
26th June – 13th July 2022 (daily)
This is the first ever exhibition of a documentary photographic narrative about the former Iron Curtain borderlands now known as the European Green Belt, photographed extensively by British-Polish photographer, Hanna-Katrina Jędrosz.
At the intersection of nature, history, political ideology and environmentalism, this photo essay documents the European Green Belt which exists along the former Iron Curtain borderlands from the Barents Sea above Norway to the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria. For nearly five decades the Iron Curtain borderlands were out-of-bounds to civilians, dividing the European East from West. During the Cold War it was a death trap to humans, but the no-man’s land enabled wildlife to flourish amongst the traces of conflict and occupation.
Today much of the route is connected through national parks and nature reserves.
At the Rook Lane Chapel Gallery, Frome. Sunday, June 26th – Wednesday, July 13th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry.
James Ravilious
21st June – 10th July 2022 (daily)
In 1972, photographer James Ravilious took on a commission from Beaford Arts’ founding director John Lane to make some images which would ‘show north Devon people to themselves‘. Seventeen years and more than seventy thousand images later, James’ Beaford Archive had become what the Royal Photographic Society called ‘a unique body of work, unparalleled at least in this country for its scale and quality‘.
James lived within the community he documented, allowing him to make a very intimate portrait of a corner of England just before it was modernised. He worked in analogue not digital mode, using a Leica rangefinder camera and rolls of film. Since his death in 1999, Ravilious’s Beaford Archive negatives have been stored in atmosphere-controlled conditions at the Devon Heritage Centre. Beaford Archive.
At the Round Tower, Black Swan Arts, Frome. Tuesday, June 21st – Sunday, July 10th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry.
© Beaford Arts digitally scanned from a Beaford Archive negative.
Click on the photo for more information and slideshow
John Angerson
26th June – 13th July 2022 (daily)
Photographer John Angerson was granted unprecedented access to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida and the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, USA, to document the final months of a yearlong intensive training program preparing for the NASA (STS-72) in January 1996.
Bringing them together with hundreds of images he uncovered at the US National Archives that were made in Earth’s orbit and captured by the original STS-72 crew, John created a new photobook. NASA STS-72 (Space Shuttle Publication). The book pays tribute to a remarkable group of astronauts at a crucial point for the Space Shuttle programme.
At the Rook Lane Chapel Gallery, Frome. Sunday, June 26th – Wednesday, July 13th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry.
Olga Karlovac
26th June – 13th July 2022 (daily)
Olga’s mysterious but alluring black and white portrayals are atmospheric and rich with emotion. The melancholic beauty invites one to take a poetic journey into the shadows as a fellow conspirator. Zagreb and Dubrovnik are her ‘theatre stages’.
Olga has published several photo books, and her photography has been featured in many photography magazines. She has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions around the world, in London, New York, Amsterdam, and Paris.
At the Rook Lane Chapel Gallery, Frome. Sunday, June 26th – Wednesday, July 13th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry.
Ramona Carraro
29th June – 15th July 2022
What better place to exhibit the music photography of Ramona Carraro than at Frome’s unique live entertainment venue, 23 Bath Street? Ramona’s mood laden portraits of musicians complement high energy portrayals of live gigs, where everyone is having fun and the musicians are giving it all they have. It will all work perfectly in this multi-storey historic building right in the town centre.
With over 20 years experience in music and live event photography, paired with a lifetime of growing up at festivals. Ramona’s natural habitat with her camera is on the stage, or amongst the crowd capturing the wonderful world of events in every shape or form.
At 23 Bath Street, Frome. Wednesday, June 29th – Friday, July 15th. 2022. 17:00-Late Wednesday – Friday; 12:00-Late Saturday; 12:00-20:00 Sunday. Free entry.
Robert Huggins
26th June – 13th July 2022 (daily)
Robert Huggins was born in Trinidad and is a roving street portrait photographer living in north-east London. Robert focusses on impromptu street portraits, one of his favourite haunts being the streets of East London. Robert’s subjects are strangers and the process of engaging with them to create the portraits has been its own reward. Another strand to his work is the use of poetry fragments to suggest connections between words and image.
His work has been published in the national press, including several editions of both Portrait of Britain and Portrait of Humanity, published by Hoxton Mini-Press in conjunction with the British Journal of Photography.
At the Rook Lane Chapel Gallery, Frome. Sunday, June 26th – Wednesday, July 13th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry.
Vanessa Fairfax-Woods
26th June – 13th July 2022 (daily)
Women’s roles in the home aren’t simple. Often split into roles of mother, wife, siren; women can find the domestic setting a minefield of stereotypes and prejudices that hark back centuries. ‘and so, I act cold’ investigates struggles with motherhood, sexuality and beauty standards pressed onto us.
Vanessa Fairfax-Woods is a conceptual photographer based in the UK who works with the issues of gender inequality and feminism. Perceived empowerment versus actual empowerment are common themes in her work. Her work is performative, playful and subversive, choosing to approach serious issues with a humour that allows a conversation to open up, rather than shut it down.
At the Rook Lane Chapel Gallery, Frome. Sunday, June 26th – Wednesday, July 13th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry. Exhibition includes adult themes and contains nudity.
Group Show: Independent Eye, at Gallery at The Station
21st June – 15th July 2022 (daily)
Frome and the surrounding area are home to a large and diverse group of photographers, both internationally acclaimed professionals and dedicated amateurs. Their work ranges from portraits to documentary, from abstract to urbanscapes, photo essay series to dramatic single photographs. All is thought provoking.
This unique exhibition in the lovely, purpose-built Gallery at The Station provides a window into the many themes of contemporary photography.
At Gallery at The Station, Frome. Tuesday, June 21st – Friday, July 15th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry.
Group Show: Culture Pool at Makers’ Yard
24th June – 15th July 2022 (weekdays only)
Culture Pool is the first visual art show curated by Makers’ Yard, the new artist-run cultural hub in Frome. The group exhibition will showcase large-format fly posters by an international group of contemporary photographers whose work represent a diverse body of intrepid portrait and still-life imagery.
The show will be an unrefined, kaleidoscopic celebration of photography that is eccentric, distinctive, and hung candidly both inside and outside of their warehouse space.
At Makers’ Yard, Frome. Friday, June 24th – Friday, July 15th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, weekdays only, free entry.
Group Show: Frome Wessex Photographic – My Vision, My Process
2nd July – 15th July 2022 (daily)
Following the success of 2021’s ‘Closing down and Opening up’ exhibitions at Corsley Reading Room and The Round Tower, Black Swan Arts, the group will be exhibiting new work showing their interpretations of this year’s Festival theme with ‘My Vision, My Process‘. Frome Wessex Photographic is one of the region’s most successful and longstanding photo groups. 20 photographers are taking part.
A variety of genres including Landscape, Street, Documentary, Still Life, Abstract and ICM (intentional camera movement) will be on display, with images from both award-winning and newly established photographers. More information and slideshow to be featured later.
At the Town Hall, Frome. Saturday, July 2nd – Friday, July 15th, 2022, 10am – 4pm daily, free entry.
Group Show: Frome College – Body Positivity
21st June – 15th July 2022 (closed Sundays)
Frome Community College photography students showcase their recent project which was part of an initiative with Frome Council. It is designed to celebrate ‘body positivity’ whilst reminding viewers that how children and young people think and feel about their body can have an important effect on their mental health.
8 students are exhibiting large scale photographs giving their personal interpretation of the theme.
At the Frome Library. Tuesday, June 21st – Friday, July 15th, 2022, 9:30am – 5:00pm Monday – Friday; 9:30am – 4:00pm Saturdays; closed Sunday. Free entry.
