18% Collective – Original Copy

27th February - 21st March 2020

FdA Photography Exhibition 2020 - Llandrillo College

At the start of each year, Oriel Colwyn takes the opportunity to support and showcase the group exhibition from 2nd year students completing Llandrillo College's FDA Photography course.

This year we introduce you to work by:

Sarah Williams

My interest is in portraiture and the work I produce is very much influenced by the visual language of horror movies and other associated genres. Using an established format for representing fear and trauma where women are mostly depicted as victims is for me a way of challenging the accepted state of affairs.

Untitled © Sarah Williams

Katie Valintine

My work for this exhibition centres on issues associated with the clothing industry. The state of the earth and saving it is paramount for many people and to draw attention to areas of concern through my own photography has to be a worthwhile endeavour.

Untitled © Katie Valintine

Harley  Davies

The gradual change in town culture from supplying goods to entertainment has impacted hugely on the social landscape of Britain. Where there were once shops and sole traders, we now find clubs, bars and cafes. During the daytime, the dying towns are inhabited by those who can’t afford the out of town experience. They buy the goods from the bargain basement stores and sit with friends outside Costa’s drinking coffee on cold, damp British days. The younger generation emerge in the evening to populate the bars and seek out the night. This is me and Colwyn Bay is my town. I usually go to Noahs, a newly refurbished bar in the centre of Colwyn Bay. This is where I hang out with friends, play pool, listen to music and photograph the nights. Friday is especially good, with the dance floor illuminated and that party in full swing, I go after the pictures.

Kalen Lindell

Car culture is a global obsession and for the last two years I have been documenting the British scene, travelling the length and breadth of the country, both night and day, to go to as many car related events as I can. Hanging out in car parks on cold and frosty nights to celebrate the latest conversions and mods carried out by enthusiasts like me, talking engines, upgrades, handling and traction, all harks back to those early days. On weekends you will usually find me at an organised track event, camera at the ready, photographing the action and the behind the scenes urgencies and camaraderie.

Denise Baker

In the wake of the Brexit referendum, I attended demonstrations, not as a passive observer, but as an active participant. As an activist I have spent my life standing up for people’s rights and making my voice heard. Now in the age of the internet and social networking I use my camera as well as my voice, not to create editorial content, but to document and share stories unfolding on the street. I also became fascinated with the messages; British protests say a lot about the British temperament, the banners and placards display a ‘politeness’; a low-key understated style of humour that seems quite specific to Britain.

Untitled © Denise Baker

Callum Humphreys

MONA

After falling into the all too familiar small-town trap of destructive lifestyle choices, I made a conscious decision in my mid-twenties to break unhealthy patterns. As a result, I became much more introverted, yet content, with a new form of clarity. Suddenly, I realised I knew nothing of the quiet, rural island that had shaped me.

The aim of the project was to reconnect with a place I call home, and to decode the conditioning that once propelled me to leave it behind.

Untitled © Callum Humphreys

Jade Vickers

The book exhibited here is what publishers would call a dummy. It’s the first attempt at laying the work out in some kind of visual order. I’m trying to tell a story of my life in a visually intricate way. The images are not in any specific chronological order but are set to the pages in a way that resembles my own idea of memory. The juxtapositions offer new possibilities of layers and connections, and in years to come, I wonder if these images will become the only concrete evidence for those memories at all? Will I truly know what I did just before or after the picture was taken. If I had not taken the picture, would I remember the moment all?

Untitled © Jade Vickers

Abby Georgia Anton

Having been brought up on the North Coast of Wales, slate quarrying was something I associated with the mountains of Snowdonia and was something that belonged to our history. The old quarrying sites and the mountains of slate waste that I had seen on car journeys were just a part of the backdrop of North Wales. Little did I know that this was an industry that had once helped shape the industrial world and impacted on the culture of North Wales as significantly as the coal valleys of the South. 

Untitled © Abby Georgia Anton

Bob Mcraight

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Featherlight © Bob Mcraight