1.30pm – 2.30pm Cumbrian Focus | Panel Discussion & Q+A

This panel discussion hosted by Curator Philip Northcott will bring together artists from the Cumbrian Focus exhibition including John Darwell, Katrin Joost, Mario Popham, Marie Smith, Philip Green & Henry Iddon. The panel will explore the different ways artists have responded to the West Coast of Cumbria.

2:30pm – 2:40pm – Interval

2.40pm – 3.30pm Marie Smith and Phoebe Kiely Artist Talk

Marie Smith is a visual artist and writer born, living and working in London. Smith graduated in 2017 with a MA in History in Art with Photography at Birkbeck, University of London. Marie’s practice incorporates text and digital and analogue photography as a form of visual language.

Marie’s experience with anxiety/depression has informed how she addresses identity, nature, environmentalism, mental health and wellbeing in her practice.

Her series for West Coast Photo entitled When you’re alone, are you really ever alone? consists of analogue and digital process to create four bespoke collages that are inspired by the nuances of Barrow-In-Furness. Marie has utilised this experience to further explore her relationship with her mental health and with her relationship to the naturalistic landscape of the UK.

Phoebe Kiely will present a new series for West Coast Photo, featuring over 70 pictures of her time on the west coast, capturing people, landscapes, industry and urban spaces. Kiely’s distinctive images are printed in the traditional way, using analogue photography developed by hand in a darkroom.

She was 2016’s Portrait of Britain winner & has been featured in the British Journal of Photography’s “Ones to Watch” and listed in The Guardian’s “Next Generation Photographers – Hottest New Talent”