Johny Pitts

Launched in 2021, the Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship is a new biennial research and development opportunity for mid-career artists using photography. The fellowship offers a substantial bursary with access to a production budget, a mentorship programme, a series of events, and a national touring exhibition.

Johny Pitts was selected as the inaugural recipient of the fellowship from almost 400 applicants. Over the past eleven months, the Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship has enabled the artist to research and develop a new series titled Home is Not a Place that documents Black British culture, people, and geographies journeying along the Thames and circumnavigating the British coast. Following the tradition of British documentary photography, Pitts is exploring the notion of home, particularly from the lens of Black communities, where there is a sense that home is where your community is and considering that black landscapes and geographies are ephemeral; ‘my photographic practice involves trying to celebrate Black spaces, capture them while they’re still here and give them a home. If not in a literal sense in a figurative sense, for me home is somewhere that you take with you.’