As part of LUAP’s Life Lines exhibition at The Bottle Factory, presented with support from Nikon, LUAP was joined by photographer and visual artist Heather Agyepong for a conversation on Photography, self-perception and mental wellbeing.
Moderated by Julian Harvie, Marketing Director at Nikon Northern Europe, the conversation developed ideas already present within Life Lines, bringing together two artists whose practices use Photography to approach inner experience and the ways we understand ourselves.
LUAP spoke about his own experience of depression and the development of The Pink Bear as a way of giving difficult thoughts and emotions a visible form. Photography has remained central to that process, creating situations in which personal experience can be approached indirectly through an image.
In Life Lines, that enquiry turns towards other people. Sixteen sitters were photographed with objects connected to their lives and personal histories. Mirrors were used as a photographic tool to fragment and reorganise each portrait, reflecting the idea that a person is made up of many different experiences and parts that together form a whole. The resulting photographs became the starting point for sixteen Paintings.
Agyepong brought another perspective through a practice spanning Photography, self-portraiture and Performance. Her work similarly engages with identity, mental health and personal experience, creating a natural point of exchange around how the camera can be used to examine experiences that are not always easily expressed directly.
The discussion moved through Photography, creativity and mental wellbeing, alongside the responsibilities involved in making work from personal experience. An audience Q&A opened those ideas further through questions around process, vulnerability and the relationship between artist and subject.
Following the conversation, a Nikon Professional expert led a hands-on session with Nikon cameras and lenses, giving visitors an opportunity to explore the technical side of image-making within the wider exhibition programme.
LUAP then led a private tour of Life Lines, bringing the discussion back to the works themselves. Moving through the exhibition allowed the photographic encounters, personal objects and sixteen Paintings to be considered together, showing how an image develops from the original sitting into Painting.
