Portchester Castle, Church Ln, Portchester, Fareham, PO16 9QW
Part of the Freedom and Photography programme
Speaking to maps presents new artwork created by students from Priory School and Portsmouth Grammar School working with artists Eva Jonas and Maya Brasington. Together the artists and students explored the complex and entangled history of Caribbean prisoners of war that were held at Portchester Castle during the late 18th century.
The exhibition is presented across three wooden structures that holds the students’ work on layered fabric, allowing you to peer through webs of process and making in light, shadow, rubbings and traces that echo the uncovering and rediscovery of remnants of the past, the exhibition also presents mapping undertaken by students creating a collaborative map that emphasises the sensorial method of ‘feeling out’ and encountering a space steeped in colonial history.
Using fragments of findings and loosely basing their placement on the geography of the site itself, the students’ work reflects upon ‘traditional’, western notions of cartography, instead presenting ideas of history as ever evolving, acknowledging gaps that remain unseen, untold, and lost.
This event is part of Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 7–16 November 2024. Being Human is led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with generous support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy.
The Freedom & Photography Schools’ programme delivered by artists Maya Brasington and Eva Louisa Jonas.
Freedom & Photography is a partnership between Photoworks, English Heritage and the University of Warwick funded by the British Academy, the University of Warwick and English Heritage.
