Edgelands

We will be holding a special one-off event to mark the closing of the RPS Documentary Photographer of the Year 2021 exhibition in Oriel Colwyn.

We have invited participants from the EDGELANDS project to present their work, and talk about the challenges they faced, how they overcame them, and what they got out of the project.

Admission is free of charge, but because of limited venue space it is necessary to book a ticket via Oriel Colwyn.

(c) John Staten

There is this urge to photograph the sublime, yet we find ourselves surrounded by the ordinary and overlooked. What stops us from photographing the mundane? Our perception of aesthetics and beauty, to which the ordinary often does not conform? Or the sheer lack of interest in the subject matter which we deem not worth photographing?

(c) Neil Johansson

Edgelands or peri-urban areas are land in-between, forming transition zones but also boundaries. These fringelands fulfil vital functions to our society, but their appearance might not appeal to a traditional perception of beauty, and so they are rarely photographed.

In this project work seventeen photographers explore edgelands in North Wales and share their experience of, and personal take on, these frontier lands.

They aimed at reaching four goals:

1) to photograph the overlooked on the fringes of urbanised areas,

2) to photograph in the vicinity where we live and work, thereby keeping the carbon footprint for this photo project as low as possible,

3) to make this project a unique and personal account of what we see, and how we visualise our response to the edgeland, and

4) to guide and encourage photographers with different photographic backgrounds and skill levels to step out of their comfort zone, engage with each other and build a community, nurture a growth mindset and expand our personal boundaries.

(c) Robert Cain

This work resulted in a self-published photobook, the online edition can be seen here

We are pleased to host this event in a follow up to the published book.

A full schedule of the evening's speakers will be released shortly.

(c) Daniel Muckle-Jones

Frontiers/Edgelands is a collaboration between the Royal Photographic Society and the North Wales Photographic Association.