Let me tell you about why I'm sharing the stories below, and those yet to come.
Each and every one of us, wherever we are, and however we identify, are attempting to belong to something. Whether it be to an ideology, a place, a group or a person, belonging shapes our identities.
Yet, what does it mean to belong, in a time when identities and citizenships can be removed, in the stroke of a pen? Or when the words 'Leave' or 'Remain' can define and separate us?
Join me in my story of belonging as I prepare to leave the land of my birth in search of another place like home.
Sometime in the early hours of April 10th, 1941, in Smethwick the lives of unconnected strangers would be changed forever. We are all connected to the spaces around us, but also to the stories and histories which have shaped those spaces. This is just one of those stories, made somewhere in the past and told here now in the present.
Andrew Jackson is an artist interested in exploring the challenges of selfhood, representation and narration.
He is an award-winning recipient of the Autograph ABP /Light Work (AIR) International Photography Residency in Syracuse, New York and a graduate of the MA Documentary photography program at Newport in Wales. His works focus on transnational migration, home and belonging, relatedness, space and place, revised histories, memory, family, storytelling and urbanism. As well the ways in which photography can change, reshape and revise history and it's telling.
In 2018 he was shortlisted for the Elliott Erwitt Fellowship and the Magnum Foundation Social Justice fellowship. His work is held in both International and National collections of photography.
He co-founded and was co-director of Some Cities CIC, a community-oriented participatory photography company, between 2013 and 2018.
He currently lives between Birmingham, UK and Montreal, Ca.
Contact: info [at] andrewjackson [dot] photography