What Photography & Incarceration have in Common with an Empty Vase  - a multifaceted body of work by photographic artist Edgar Martins - is developed from a collaboration with Grain Projects and HM Prison Birmingham (the largest, category B prison in the Midlands, UK), its inmates, their families as well as a myriad of other local organisations and individuals.

From the ffotogallery website…

“Using the social context of incarceration as a starting point, Martins explores the philosophical concept of absence, and addresses a broader consideration of the status of the photograph when questions of visibility, ethics, aesthetics and documentation intersect.

By giving a voice to inmates and their families and addressing prison as a set of social relations rather than a mere physical space, Martins’ work proposes to rethink and counter the sort of imagery normally associated with incarceration.

The project thus wilfully circumvents images whose sole purpose, Martins argues, is to confirm the already held opinions within dominant ideology about crime & punishment: violence, drugs, criminality, race – an approach that only serves to reinforce the act of photographing and photography itself as apotropaic devices”.

Exhibition: Friday 4 March - Saturday 9 April 2022
Ffotogallery’s Gallery opening hours are currently: Weds – Saturday 12 – 5pm

Preview evening: 6pm Thursday 3 March

Ffotogallery, Old Sunday School, Fanny Street, Cathays, Cardiff CF24 4EH
Free admission

Full exhibition and access information on the Ffotogallery website www.ffotogallery.org