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Please note: RPS House is currently closed. We will be open again from the week of 14th October 2024.

Caroline Fraser_ Shore
CREDIT: Caroline Fraser

To Shine a Light / Who Dared to Dream

RPS Gallery | 9 August - 29 September 2024

The Royal Photographic Society curated this new exhibition opening at RPS Gallery Bristol which features work from Fion Hung-Ching Yan, Ayesha Jones, Tasha Hylton, Trish Crawford ARPS, Caroline Fraser ARPS and Rachel Nixon. Find out more about the artist, exhibition and the inspiration for the exhibition.

Featured Artists | RPS Women in Photography |

Ayesha Jones
CREDIT: Ayesha Jones
To Shine a Light / Who Dared to Dream

To Shine a Light / Who Dared to Dream is a  new exhibition curated by the Royal Photographic Society showcases the work of six contemporary female photographic artists. For these artists photography is a means of shining a light on themselves, both as a tool for understanding and as one for engagement.

This show presents photographic projects which explore personal stories and histories or seek to effect wider change by raising public awareness. The artists present their themes using a breadth of different approaches including documentary, conceptual, self-portraiture, landscape and the layering of images and artificial intelligence (AI) generated details. 

The exhibition projects cover a range of themes: Medical conditions and the physical and mental impact on individuals, the environmental impact of discarded plastic on our beaches, society’s negative views of older women, an exploration of love and feelings, and a rediscovered family album as a key to understanding the artist's parents.

Rachel Nixon
CREDIT: Rachel Nixon-
Shining a light on six artists

The RPS Women in Photography group publication WE ARE celebrated the featured artist from To Shine a Light / Who Dared to Dream in the September Issue of the magazine. 

The featured article highlights all six artist including the three RPS Women in Photography group members, sharing information about the work alongside gallery install images.

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East Linton 20190306 130128©Joy Gregory
CREDIT: Joy Gregory

Shining Lights: Black Women Photographers in 1980s–90s Britain

This exhibition is inspired by Joy Gregory’s new book Shining Lights: Black Women Photographers in 1980s–90s Britain which brings together work from fifty-seven photographers. Their work spans documentary and conceptual practices, including the experimental use of photomontage, self-portraiture, staged imagery, and photography in dialogue with other media.

There will a selection of images from the book featured in the RPS exhibition where visitors will also be able to read the book. 

Joy Gregory is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society having work featured in the RPS exhibition Squaring the Circles which is currently touring at Dalkeith Palace, Scotland.

Mack Books
Trish Crawford
CREDIT: Trish Crawford
RPS Women in Photography

We are delighted that three of the exhibitors in To Shine a Light / Who Dared to Dream are members of the Royal Photographic Society Women in Photography Group.

The RPS Women in Photography Group aims to facilitate the celebration, education and collaboration of female and female-identifying photographers. 

The RPS Women in Photography Group are part of the discussion that drives a greater awareness of the importance of women photographers past, present and future.

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Featured Artists 

Trish Crawford

Trish Crawford is a Canadian photographer based in the Niagara region of Southern Ontario at the confluence of Lakes Ontario and Erie.

Her photographic work looks at family, place of origin, women's lives, and the intersection of rural and urban life. She is currently researching an upcoming documentary project on the local family physician crisis.

Her work has been exhibited locally at St Catharines City Hall, The Niagara Pumphouse (Art at the Pumphouse) and The Exchange (Niagara Falls Night of Art). Outside of Canada, her photographs have been part of exhibits at the RPS Summer Exhibition (Bristol, 2023), We Are Magazine (RPS Women in Photography 2024), Source magazine MA/MFA Graduate Review, Shutter Hub To the Sea, (France, 2023-2024), Shutter Hub Yearbook - 2024, Shutter Hub Open at Cambridge University (Cambridge, England 2023-2024). She also has been awarded several honourable mentions and one category win (iPhone series) for her work by the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards (2023 & 2024).

Trish’s day job is in the Development Department at the Shaw Festival Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. She holds a BA in Political Science from Brock University, an MA in photography from Falmouth University and the ARPS distinction from the Royal Photographic Society.

She lives in an old house with her husband, two senior pets, and three young adults at various stages of leaving the nest.

trishcrawfordphoto.com
Caroline Fraser

Caroline Fraser’s photography is a response to the beauty and infinite variety of nature, coupled with aconcern for the environment. Her quiet representations of mood and location place an emphasis on the intimate details within nature, using abstraction and layering. Multiple exposures add depth and complexity to her work. Her current project explores the sea shore at Camber Sands from an environmental perspective. She is a committed litter picker!

Her love of remote landscapes has taken her to the highlands of Scotland, Iceland, New Zealand, Greenland, and many times to Vancouver where her children now live. She adds meaning to her work by combining images and words in limited edition handmade books.

She has exhibited widely in the Unirted Kingdom,and has been featured in On Landscape and Outdoor Photography magazines. She has undertaken artist residencies in Switzerland, Wales and Vashon Island, Seattle. She is winner of the non-professional ‘abstract and still life’ category of the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards 2024. Caroline works from her studio in Rye, UK, where she runs hand-made book and photo book making workshops ‘Say it with Books’, both in-person and online.

carolinefraser.org
Fion Hung-Ching Yan

Fion Hung-Ching Yan works primarily in staged photography and photo collage, presenting work in the forms of installations and books. Her practice challenges the nature of humanity, inspired by the traditional stereotypes she encountered as a woman in Chinese society, family trauma, and conflicts with others in daily life. Hung is currently studying the discredited concept of eugenics and how it influences society’s treatment and understanding of disabilities, especially for those who inherit genetic disorders, under capitalism in the modern world.​

​Fion Hung-Ching Yan is a visual artist, a researcher, and an art educator. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Hon) in Visual Arts from Hong Kong Baptist University in 2016 and completed a Master's degree in Photography from the London College of Communication, UAL, in 2023. Her artworks have been exhibited internationally, including the Chiang Mai Photo Festival 2017, Hong Kong International Photo Festival 2020, FORMAT Photo Festival 2020, and Copenhagen Photo Festival 2020. Her project The Skeletons In The Closet(2021-2022) was selected as one of the finalists of the Hahnemühle Student Award and was exhibited in Photo London in 2023. It is also shown as a solo show at the South London Gallery as part of Peckham24's programs in 2023. Hung is currently teaching photography in the Academy of Visual Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University and the Hong Kong Metropolitan University.

hungchingyan.com
Tasha Hylton

Tasha Hylton is a Bristol-based photographer whose work mainly focuses on portraiture and fashion. She brings a passion to capture up close and intimate images of her subjects which helps her build a connection to create strong images. She credits this with helping her to win the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Britain award in 2022. 

As she grows as a photographer, she aims to spend more time exploring subjects around her own personal experiences, race, culture and identity as a black female photographer. She wants to create visual stories to express moments and feelings to share with her audience.

tashahylton.com
Ayesha Jones

Ayesha Jones is an artist based in the West Midlands. She works predominantly with photography and film and is interested in art as a catalyst for growth, healing and social impact.

Jones’ work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and she has won awards, including Magnum Photos and The Photography Show’s 30 under 30 international award, and the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Britain and Decade of Change.

She has recently worked on commissions with Ikon Gallery, Gaia Foundation, Multistory, Comic Relief, Belgrade Theatre and Eastside Projects.

ayeshajones.co.uk
Rachel Nixon

Rachel Nixon is a British-Canadian fine art photographer – and former journalist – based in Vancouver. Having lived and worked across continents and cultures, she explores issues such as a desire for connection with one’s heritage, as well as secrecy, isolation and memory. She is intrigued by the visual poetry of daily life and seeks out images speaking to beauty and broader messages in the seemingly mundane.

In 2019, Nixon graduated with honours from the VanArts professional photography program in Vancouver. Since then, her work has been exhibited internationally, and she has received a number of accolades including being a four-time category winner in the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards. In 2024, she was named among Dodho Magazine’s top 100 fine art photographers.

She also brings her editorial and photographic experience to her volunteer role as Editor of WE ARE Magazine, the publication of the Royal Photographic Society’s Women in Photography group.

rachelnixon.com

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Céline Bodin - Social Media Crop
CREDIT: Céline Bodin
DalkeithPhoto - Squaring the Circles of Confusion
Dalkeith Palace | 08 Sept - 06 Oct

This September DalkeithPhoto will present its inaugural month of photography at Dalkeith Palace. With an exciting programme of exhibitions, a major symposium, film screenings and tours.

Squaring the Circles of Confusion: Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st Century curated by Zelda Cheatle HonFRPS, celebrates the work of eight contemporary artists. Each adopts a pictorialist approach through their aesthetic or process to their work. They address contemporary issues and at the same time demonstrate the beauty of the photographic image.

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Samuchenko Yevhen At The Pink Planet
CREDIT: Yevhen Samuchenko
International Photography Exhibition & National Trust
Fox Talbot Museum | 29 June 2024 - 27 April 2025

A selection of images from the International Photography Exhibition will be exhibited at the National Trust’s Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock 29 June 2024 - 27 April 2025.

The International Photography Exhibition has been held almost every year since 1854 and is the longest running exhibition of its kind. The exhibition at the Fox Talbot Museum represents a selection from the last three years’ worth of RPS exhibitions.

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Hellscape A Dystopian Panorama 2024
CREDIT: Billy H.C. Kwok

Realms of Memory by Billy H.C Kwok, Jay Lau & Lau Wai | Bristol Photo Festival

RPS Gallery | 17 October - 22 December 2024 |  Free admission

Realms of Memory by Billy H.C Kwok, Jay Lau & Lau Wai is part of the second edition of the Bristol Photo Festival. 

The archiving impulse is one that attempts to trace, document, and make sense of the world. In response to the photographic archives of Hong Kong held by the University of Bristol and the University of Hong Kong, artists Billy H.C. Kwok, Jay Lau, and Lau Wai have developed new projects that interpret the archival stories of their home city, while revealing the gaps that exist.

The works created explore how Hong Kong has always been a place of duality: real and imagined, public and private, fact and fiction, public and private. This exhibition is produced by WMA, in collaboration with the Royal Photographic Society and the Hong Kong History Centre at the University of Bristol.

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