Image by Esther May Campbell
Join Kitchen Table Photo Club from Thursday 5 – Friday 13 December at the Pulp Room gallery in St Anne’s House to experience 378,432,000,000 Seconds of Exposure, a giddy group photo & art show by Kitchen Table Photo Club (KTPC).
If photography (especially the analogue kind) sparks your curiosity, you won’t want to miss this. If the epic potential of ‘PLAY’ calls to you, make the trip. If wild places, community clubs, ancient history, modern times, make-believe, memories, and mystery make you giddy, come down and witness 378,432,000,000 Seconds of Exposure.
We invite you to rest, play and spend time gawping at the poetic and thrilling photos, maps and art works created by the kids and adults of KTPC during their residency at Nightingale Valley, St Anne’s as part of Mayfest 2024. Discover how, through the art of playful exploration, these Earthlings cultivated a collective sense of being in an ancient, enduring, and transformative place. Witness a photography art show that is at once deeply local and powerfully mystical.
Nestled in the St Anne’s area of Bristol, Nightingale Valley is an urban woodland, a pilgrimage route, and an industrial outpost — one of the city’s most intriguing spots, just a stone’s throw from Bricks.
Wander through images filled with mirth and mystery, where the natural world, imagination, and the energy of young people merge to create whimsical shapes and stories. Delve into rich histories of the Nightingale Valley and keep your hands busy by contributing to a large-scale photographic collage. On Thursday 5th December from 7.30pm, experience the sounds of Hypnagogia for Holocene; a long-form lullaby of foraged sounds and poems from within Nightingale Woods, created and presented by t l k.
This is a tactile and inventive show that encourages you to pause and reflect, take inspiration, strike a pose, doodle on images, time-travel back to the Ice Age, leap into the future, walk in waters once touched by dinosaurs — or even kiss a leaf. When you’re ready, rest on it all and take it in. These are some of the gifts offered by the compelling Black & White images created by the generous minds of the KTPC gang.
Led by artist Esther May Campbell and a cohort of 11 young people, this specially commissioned project also features creative contributions from Adam Hynes, Jessica Hynes, t l k, Daniel Morden, Ashley Peever, and Chiz Williams, along with an array of photographers, academics, and helpers — all of whom merged with the land and emerged favourably altered.
Three hundred and seventy-eight billion, four hundred and thirty-two million seconds is an epic timeframe. KTPC were only in the valley for a month but this was enough time to get deep into all kinds of mischief of one kind or another.
Opening Times:
Thursday 5th December - opening from 7.30pm - late, special guest performance from t l k. £6 - Book your ticket here.
Friday 6th December - midday - 8pm
Saturday 7th December - midday - 6pm
Sunday 8th December - midday - 6pm
2.30pm - Fantasy Cameras Workshop with David Hopkinson, drop in - no booking required
Monday 9th December & Tuesday 10th December - CLOSED
Wednesday 11th December - midday - 6pm
Thursday 12th December - midday - 6pm
Friday 13th December - midday - 8pm
Free and open to all ages.
Kitchen Table Photo Club
Set up to be an affordable, fun-to-run club, KTPC is a community art group. Artist, Esther May Campbell, founded it in her home, in Easton Bristol, around her kitchen table.
The club gathers people to mess around, look at books, fiddle with analogue cameras, take photos, exhibit work all the while fostering friendship, connection and play. KTPC explores what it’s like being an artist and creates images along its way.
KTPC travels and, when it does, it adapts. It sets up in different places, engaging KTPC members to help out and forge new connections.
About Esther May Campbell: https://esthermaycampbell.com/
Esther May Campbell is an award winning artist working with film and photography. She explores the links between image-making, story & play while creating compelling images and films for public transmission. Intrigued by the potential to co-create via play, myth, ritual and old analogue photography, images emerge that are moving and alarming.
Recent work includes a set of art/photo prompts called Bewilderment Cards, a photo-book made at St Paul's Adventure Playground called Scrapbook, and book Water Salad on Monday that documents Elm Tree Farm.
Credits:
In residence: Betty Birch, Cassian Booth, Mavis Bowly, Esther May Campbell, Leila Dimond, Florence Dewey, Maxwell Dewey, Rory Graham, Luca Jones, Amelia Mason, Finley O’Reilly, Bram Turner and Chiz Williams.
Artists, Helpers & Techs: Ben Gaster, Evie Hall, Jo Hellier, David Hopkinson, Adam Hynes, Jessica Hynes, Sinead Gulless, t l k, Rod Maclachlan, Daniel Morden, Ashley Peever, Adam Roe, Maria Meco Sanchez, Abigail Tinnion, Dot Williams and Joel Williams.
With thanks to: The Valley and Brook, Mayfest, Andy Coogan and Friends of Brislington Brook, Baggles and Eastwinds Activity Center, all the adults and children that helped get the KTPC to the valley.
This event is part of Confluence - a production by MAYK, commissioned by Ginkgo Projects for The Glassworks with the support of Grainger Plc. With support from Jack’s Lab and Photographique.
Following events in Redcliffe last December and continuing as part of this year’s Mayfest, Confluence is unfolding over the next few months with interventions and events running until May 2025.
