Photoworks are pleased to announce Johny Pitts as the recipient of the inaugural Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship.
Working closely with the Photoworks team over the course of the next twelve months, Pitts will develop a new body of work. The project ‘will reflect upon Black Britishness – its complexity, strength, and resilience – at the start of a new decade’, Pitts explains. Informed by the vibrancy and multiplicity of cultural expressions of the Harlem Renaissance in New York a century ago, Pitts will set out to document the many manifestations of Black British culture, starting in London, journeying along the Thames and circumnavigating the British coast.
A self-taught photographer, Pitts photographic practice follows in the tradition of British documentary photography. This new body of work builds on Pitts ‘Afropean Archive’ of over 100,000 images, compiled over more than a decade documenting the Black experience in Europe. Pitts first solo show, Afropean: Travels in Black Europe launched at Foam in Amsterdam in 2020. He is also the founder of the online journal Afropean.com and author of Afropean: Notes from Black Europe.
The inaugural Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship launched with an Open Call in January 2021, receiving almost 400 applications from artists living in the UK. The pre-jury included Sarah Allen, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern, Sebah Chaudhry, Co-Founder ReFramed, Charlotte Jansen, Independent Curator, and Raquel Villar-Pérez, Assistant Curator, Photoworks, and the selection panel included Duncan Forbes, Director, Department of Photography, V&A, Renée Mussai, Senior Curator / Head of Curatorial & Collections, Autograph, Shoair Mavlian, Director, Photoworks and Flor Souto, Director, The Ampersand Foundation. More information about Pitts new project, public programme and exhibition will be released soon.
About the Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship
The Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship is a new opportunity for a mid-career artist to complete and exhibit a new body of work in 2021-2022. It aims to enable and nurture the creation of new work through a combination of support including a £15,000 award, mentoring and curatorial support, a dedicated public programme and digital content with international reach, production budget and touring exhibition.
About The Ampersand Foundation
The Ampersand Foundation is a UK grant-awarding charity that exclusively supports the visual arts. The Ampersand Foundation supports high-quality exhibitions and projects, provided they are free to the public at least one day per week. They also support public collection expansion and capital projects. The Foundation is focused mainly on supporting institutions and projects within the United Kingdom. theampersandfoundation.com
About Spectrum
Spectrum is a longstanding professional imaging lab specialising in high quality fine art and photographic printing, as well as archival mounting. They are proud of the reputation that they have established for themselves and are known for their high quality, passion, and above all, excellent service to their customers. spectrumphoto.co.uk
