England’s New Lenses

England’s New Lenses explored your heritage through photography, to tell the stories that get left out of the history books, and to help us discover alternative narratives of our history.

We wanted to explore everyone’s unique heritage and the ‘heritage of the future’, documenting the people, places, and communities that have shaped us as individuals, including the heritage you want to hand down to future generations.

There are two parts to the program #UntoldHeritage and the England’s New Lenses Commissions.

ENGLAND'S NEW LENSES: COMMISSIONS

Four photographers, between 18 and 25, have been working on creating new Photographic work at 4 English Heritage sites exploring alternative narratives and new voices of England.

A panel of judges including Stuart Lawrence of the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation and artist Mahtab Hussain looked at artwork submissions and selected four photographers.

The Artists are:
Kemka Ajoku
Abena Appiah
Mia Parker-Tang
Megan Dalton

They were at sites across England from March to May 2021, researching, developing, and creating, and exhibited their work at Wrest Park in Summer and Autumn 2021.

The Artists

Find out more about the 4 selected artist and their initial plans and statements on the commissions. As well as a bit more information about the stages in the commission and what it entailed for the all the artists.

Find out more

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

The work and exhibiton

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

Their work was exhibited at Wrest Park in the summer of 2021, but you can still see some of it online here and watch amazing mini-documentary’s about each of the artists.

England’s New Lenses: The Commissions

ENGLAND'S NEW LENSES: UNTOLD HERITAGE

Over the summer of 2020 we asked you to explore Untold Heritage, thought a number of sub-themes, from your family history (from your immediate family to ancestry and traditions) or more broadly share the untold heritage of your communities (work, industries, places of significance, movements, etc.). To ‘future heritage’, using your camera to explore the current big issues like climate change, lockdown, unemployment, equality and housing.

Through a series of workshops and an open competition, we received hundreds of photos – entries were judged by our panel, with the best being selected for a place in the digital Photoworks Festival in October 2020 and receiving a range of prizes.

We were blown away by the work submitted if you haven’t yet had a look at the winners, entries or resources check them out now.

Resources and Themes

Whilst the competition is over the resources we created as part of #UntoldHeritage are still very much available. You can explore them here and have a go at creating your own works of photography.

Feel free to tag us on Instagram if you share work created with these resources.

Themes

Entry Gallery

Check out all the amazing photos that were submitted as part of the competition.

Whilst voting officially ended in 2020 you can still drop a vote on your favorite images if you like.

Gallery

#UntoldHeritage Winners

A judging panel including professional photographers, young people and heritage professionals came together to select 2 winners and 8 runners up.

See the winning images and find out more about their images and what the judges thought here.

The Winners

This project was done in collaboration with our consortium partner Photoworks.

Photoworks champions photography for everyone. Global in reach, we have been providing opportunities for artists and audiences since 1995. Photoworks is committed to supporting young artists, helping to develop practice and support career progression.

The commissions are part of England’s New Lenses, a broader partnership between Photoworks and English Heritage, forming part of Shout Out Loud, English Heritage’s national youth engagement programme. England’s New Lenses is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Youth Accelerator Fund.