Focus Here 23rd July - 27th August

A HPF commission in partnership with the Royal National College for the Blind - challenging stereotypes and celebrating the English B1 Football Team and Hereford’s 2010 Blind World Cup Championship at ThePoint4 in August 2010.

Focus Here is part of Hereford Photography Festival’s program of socially-engaged Common Land artist commissions, funded by Arts Council England as is part of the Cultural Olympiad Open Weekend Program.

Lead artist Becky Matthews worked with mentored artists Kirsty Pye and Sophie Foulkes; Hereford Photography Festival’s Jaime Jackson; members of the B1 English Football team and staff and students from the RNCB including, Ashley Carter, Bretton Smeed, Emma Bailey Bocking, John Bord, Luke Mitchell and Samantha Brookes.

Over 20 visually impaired students from the RNCB took part in workshops. This is a critical practice participatory project, the artists worked closely with visually impaired students because we wanted to incorporate their experience and knowledge into the art concept.

Workshop program with visually impaired and B1 Blind students from RNC

It was one of our B1 student’s (Brett) idea to use light boxes, not because they would just show the work more clearly, but that the heat generated by the bulbs would make the black printed parts of the design warmer than the non - printed ‘white’ elements of the design. It was that together with the raised texture used in the printed process that we hope helps blind people to read the work.

We are also exhibiting Brett’s photographic work ‘Developing Countries’ in the exhibition. The more ‘developed’ a country or continent the longer he left developed the image using darkroom processes.

In the video installation we also used ideas around orientation, visualising negative space, the space between objects rather then the objects themselves, and the ability of some B1 players to orientate themselves in relation to other object through an internal sonar.

The resulting exhibition – in The Bistro and corridors, ThePoint4 - is a series of photographic portraits of individual players from the B1 English Football Team. Becky photographed the footballers in their homes or their work environments. The exhibition continues with light boxes, a video art installation, documentary photographs by Kirsty Pye, ‘Developing Countries’ a photographic installation by RNC student Bretton Smeed, and digital art signs located around ThePoint4 during the Blind Football World Cup.

exhibition at thePoint4 Hereford part of the Blind Football world cup

exhibition of workshop documentation

lightbox detail - the lightboxes were designed with rasied rpints and lights so that the black retains more heat, so making reading easier through touch.

 

 

Focus Here is a Hereford Photography Festival exhibition- Becky Mathews