with thanks to Elizabeth Orcutt, Emma Booth, Molly Budd, to The Photo Book Cafe for hosting this year’s exhibition, and to Creative UK Devon for sponsorship
El Camino de Santiago, or ‘The Way of St. James’, is one of Europe’s most renowned pilgrimage routes. Beginning in SaintJean-Pied-de-Port, France, it spans about 500 miles through northern Spain, ending at Santiago de Compostela, the alleged burial site of St. James. This journey attracts pilgrims from around the world seeking spiritual, adventurous, or cultural enrichment.
In February, I undertook a midwinter pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela to step out of my comfort zone and understand why this route is described as life-changing. As I walked, I observed the profound impact it had on myself and fellow pilgrims. The journey challenges and marks the body but profoundly enriches the spirit. It offers solitude and simplicity, leading to clarity and inner peace, allowing for deep self-reflection. Disconnecting from daily distractions, pilgrims connect more deeply with themselves. The Spanish saying “cadaunoencuentrasupropiocamino,” meaning “everyonefindstheirownpath,” resonated with me. Each pilgrim, regardless of their motives, finds what they seek during the journey. This pilgrimage demands dedication, sacrifice, and time. Every pilgrim follows the same trail, but their journey is uniquely their own.
This series of photographs, captured over 30 days, aims to depict the pilgrimage’s harshness while exploring the profound self-connection that arises from such sacrifice and dedication. Through this work, I hope to challenge others to see how a landscape shapes human experience and vice versa. In Spanish, ‘Buen Camino’ means ‘good path’ or ‘good way.’ This greeting conveys camaraderie, encouragement, and goodwill among pilgrims and locals alike.
www.cosimocampagna.com
Emilia Ashby
Child of The Novacene
This body of work explores a future dystopia in which Artificial Intelligence has become the dominant species on Earth. It imagines what the relationship humans could have with Artificial Intelligence and more specifically, what it would look like if people saw the AI as a higher power and chose to worship it, forming a new religion. For this project, I have used self portraiture in an abstract natural landscape, physically devoting myself to this higher power. This landscape is familiar yet unfamiliar leaving it up to the audience to decide when this shift in power on earth could happen and how that affects the world surrounding the subject of the image.
This series explores the relationship between an individual and this higher power in a world where reality has become uncertain. The name itself refers to James Lovelock’s book titled ‘Novacene’ in which he discusses the future of humanity which will be the end of the Anthropocene (the age of humanity) and the beginning of The Novacene (the age of computers).
Kate Bannister
Drawn To The Light
Much more than annoying dull pests that eat clothes, moths have been misunderstood and maligned for centuries. DrawntotheLight takes a multifaceted approach to documenting moths. It displays them as beautiful creatures to help the audience connect to these often-demonised insects. The series stems from a life-long love of the natural world, inspired by a fascination of moths and a yearning to share the joy of these insects. Promoting moths in a positive way, the project combines a variety of image-making techniques with an understanding of the life-cycle and instincts of moths, a collaboration of science and art, blurring the line between moth and myth. The work spotlights these incredible insects and shows moths in new ways. The work is composed of two series of images: WhereMothsMight Fly and TheMothsofSpring. Each element takes a unique approach in showing the beauty, uniqueness, and plights of moths, bringing into the spotlight insects that are often forgotten; hidden in the darkness and shadowed by their dayflying counterparts.
WhereMothsMightFly is an artistic representation of the flight paths of moths, despite long-standing connections between moths and light, it was not until recently that the reason for this attraction was discovered. These images show the hidden lives of moths as they explore their habitats. Moths are often thought of as small, dull, and brown. Most people dislike the insects and do not connect with them. TheMothsofSpring presents them in a different way, embracing the uniqueness of each species and showcasing the colours and textures of moths, particularly their facial features. With British moth diversity declining rapidly, this project is a reminder of the presence and beauty of these insects, and importance as they pollinate plants and provide food for a wide variety of animals including birds and bats.
www.katebannister.co.uk
Lola Cockerell Anthropocene
Exploring humans’ disconnection from nature, in the current geological epoch known as the Anthropocene, where humans have had a significant impact on the planet.
Often finding ourselves in an auto-piloted state, with endless scrolling, humans are living in digital realities. Neglecting our responsibility to our planet in pursuit of fleeting desires and short-term gains. Accepting the endless content and information we are exposed to, without question or evaluation. As humans we have an intimate and complex connection to nature, but this can only be realised through exposure, education, and respect. Exposure leads to knowledge, knowledge to understanding, understanding to appreciation, and with appreciation we are more likely to take responsibility.
My project Anthropocene blurs the lines between reality and digital worlds, using photography, 3D scans and AI, with the intention of jolting the viewers out of this auto-piloted state, to stop and slow down, challenging them to analyse and reflect on the reality of what they are seeing.
Heading into the ever-growing digitalised future, I hope that a re-evaluation of our connection to nature and its importance is made to find a more harmonious and balanced way of life, sparking positive change in our attitudes towards other species and the environment before it’s too late.
Disconnecting to reconnect.
www.lolacockerell.com
Ollie Heath Owlman
The Story of the Owlman is a relatively short one considering the age of some other folklore and mythological tales, yet it is already a forgotten one. In a nutshell, the Owlman is believed by some to be a half man, half owl creature that haunts a small wood on the Cornish coastline, sightings only go back to 1976 and have since been debunked. However, I was not interested in making the story known or proving its existence, instead, I just wanted to understand it, I wanted to put my finger on this impossibly real mythical creature that suddenly felt so real to me.
As a very sceptical individual on all things spiritual in nature I used photography as means of exploration into this story, paving a new narrative ending up as visualising the Owlman as some sort of God. The Owlman photo book takes you alongside, on a journey through a fictional and non-fictional discourse as the pieces of the Owlman’s story are put together.
www.olliesamheath.com
Tyler-Lei Ashford
You can be the Dad
You can be the Dad is an exploration into the role of a mother, particularly the ways in which I feel maternal towards my younger sister, and how motherhood is something that is fluid within my household. It delves into the role of a caregiver, and what happens when the carer constructs a situation in which they become the cared for.
It highlights the strength that lies within female dominated households as they fuse together in the absence of a man. I have been utilising this time photographing my sister to relive moments of childhood I feel I have lost, as I see myself in the young woman my sister is becoming.
www.tylerleiashford.com
Viviana Almas
Uncircuit
The unknown is what occurs in the transition between wakefulness and sleep.
Uncircuit is a photographic project that has evolved organically over the past year. Characterised by spontaneity and lack of constraint, it questions the depiction of reality and its presentation. It suggests new ways of looking at the world and seeks to move away from the ‘actual’. Almas reconstructs alternate realities around her environment, aiming not to adhere to connotations but to create her own understanding. Performance is pivotal in the project, enabling Almas to invent new spaces that evoke vast atmospheres. Staging places theatrical figures within liminal spaces and alternate realities. Abstract objects and linear geometries within Almas’s mise-en-scène puzzle together, creating a new outlook on the world. The figures, frozen in movement, emphasize the boundless imagination of the creative mind. By basing the project on performance and action, she evokes possible situations that may have occurred or could occur in the future.
Like theatre, Uncircuit portrays situations based on given facts, truths infused with new irrational connotations. The actual sense of the real comes from within, from a place that is not conscious. Alma’s work alludes to a multi-faceted world. Her set pieces and improvisations are a labyrinth of complex simulations. She problematises her own expectations by materializing dreams. Almas’s associated work forms a visual cosmos entwined in assemblages of meaning. Uncircuit does not provide answers or truths; it simply implies questions that allow one to rethink place. www.vivianalmas.com
Will Barber
This is Not a Destination
The British motoring public have always held service stations close to their hearts; every driver has their favourite services.
Back in the early 60s when service stations first came about, families would even travel to them for an exciting day out, sending postcards of Newport Pagnell and Watford Gap on the M1 to their friends. These days, the glamorous mental picture of a service station has been replaced with uniform banality, merely facilitating the loo break and a chance to get a burger.
By romanticising service stations, This Is Not A Destination seeks to reinject life and expose the vast character held by the greatest cross-section of life in Britain. They will become destinations once more!
