England’s New Lenses: The Commissions

Wide shot of England's New Lenses photography exhibition at Wrest Park

In partnership with Photoworks, four young emerging photographers were selected in early 2021 to create a body of work inspired by four English Heritage sites of their choosing: Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, Middleham Castle in Yorkshire and Tintagel Castle in Cornwall.

Each of the young photographers explored what heritage means to them, responding to the brief by offering an alternative perspective, and a new voice on Englishness and identity.

Working with English Heritage, Photoworks, and their mentors, they planned their shoots, managed their team and models, alongside the constraints of the sites to produce some amazing images. The final exhibition opened at Wrest Park in August 2021 and was on display until the beginning of November.

Check out the mini-documentary’s to hear from the artists themselves and scroll down to find out more about each of the artists and their work.

Mini-documentarys by Piotr Sell

Megan Dalton

Mia Parker-Tang

Kemka Ajoku

Abena Appiah

Kemka Ajoku: Finding Common Ground

Kemka Ajoku (22) is a London based photographer. His series ‘Finding Common Ground’ explores what it means to be Black and British, shining a spotlight on those living in the UK following the Windrush era between 1948 and 1971. Using fashion imagery and portraiture, Ajoku took inspiration from Wrest Park to explore immigration stories, inherited cultures from foreign soil, and how they have been embedded into the new British way of life.

“This project was executed following months of research into the sociological make-up of Black settlement in the UK, with added emphasis on London, the city I was born and raised in. With the aid of literature and archival film and music, I explored issues such as housing, the job market, and the misrepresentation of our history in this country, leaving me with extensive knowledge of my people leading up to the photoshoot at Wrest Park.”

Photo from Kemka Ajoku's piece, Finding Common Ground, Wrest Park

“All my models were styled in Black and Black British-owned clothing lines. Pieces were styled to show the integration of fashion from different African cultures, representing how over time they were adapted by each generation to express oneself, from post-war Britain in the 1940s through to the disco fits of the late 1970s. All in all, Finding Common Ground seeks to highlight what it means to be British in today’s society, and most importantly teach our future generations that Black British heritage is British heritage.”

Abena Appiah: From the Maghreb

Abena Appiah (23) is a London-based photographer and filmmaker. Her work ‘From the Maghreb’, features a series of portraits which give a voice to the African contributions to English history by capturing the landscapes surrounding Hadrian’s Wall through the eyes of North African Romans. Her work is inspired by Peter Fryer’s ‘Staying Power’, which explores the hidden histories of Africans, Asians and their descendants in Britain over the course of two thousand years. She also takes inspiration from writers and poets such as James Berry and Édouard Glissant, whose work explores themes of identity and migration.

“On the whole, the work seeks to explore feelings of belonging and identity, through referencing and combining elements of both North African and Roman cultures and forming a dialogue between them – an idea that transcends time and place and is even more relatable and relevant in the multicultural society we live in today.”

Image of the sun setting at Hadrian's Wall

Megan Mechelle Dalton: Both Sides of the Rose

Megan Mechelle Dalton (22) is a Yorkshire based photographer whose series ‘Both Sides of the Rose’ explores how the past has reverberated through time, and how the narratives of the 15^th century resonate with our current society. Set at Middleham Castle, she re-tells the untold stories of the War of the Roses through the eyes of women during this period and highlights the impacts of societal division.

“The conflict seen throughout England during the Wars of the Roses stemmed in part from socio-economic breakdowns and a clear lack of leadership. These causes aren’t far from the issues reverberating through our current society; people are becoming more politically polarized while the struggle for democracy and non-partisan leadership increases globally…”

3 women in period dress sitting on the walls at Middleham Castle

“The conflicts seen all through the interval of the Wars of the Roses largely stemmed from socio-economic breakdown and a scarcity of presidency management, which has a parallel with what we’ve seen within the pandemic.”

The Guardian

Mia Parker-Tang: There Lies the World

Mia Parker-Tang (23) is a British-Chinese photographer whose work ‘There Lies the World’, explores the intersections between her own heritage and geological time through the coastal location of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall.

“Working with Tintagel as a location was like a dream, it’s so rich in history and has such a dramatic landscape. Places like that exist as liminal spaces, between our understanding of the world now and how it used to be. If time is a veil between the past and the present, this work is my way of playing with that in-between space, of making it less unknown”.

Photo of a girl from behind holding up a tie-dyed piece of fabric

“Like Tintagel itself, I want my photographs to facilitate the exploration of both the past and the present. When people engage with my work, I don’t want them to see a document of something that happened, I want them to see a moment in progress, time slowed down for an image, but never stopped entirely.”