Processing the Past

About

Processing the Past brings together the work of photographers Kevin Percival and Tina Rowe in a exhibition exploring the relationship between the mechanism and affect of photography.

Tina’s body of work comes from a residency at the British School in Athens in January and February of 2024. She worked with an unfamiliar large format camera and used paper instead of film to produce negatives. The images of the building contrast the library space with the hostel. The hostel used to be an and important hub with many visiting academics and researchers staying in the rooms. With the rise of sites like Airbnb, the hostel is less used, more quiet and still.

Kevin’s photographs comprise images from his recent ‘Memory Bank’ project, documenting a move of three national museums from their store in West London, Blythe House, and the gradual emptying of this huge and beautiful building. Alongside this, he presents some images from his ‘Tanera (Ar Dùthaich)’ residency, where he stayed as part of the community on a remote Scottish island.

Both photographers work here brings themes of human imprint on space, whether that is shown through their absence as in ‘Memory Bank’ and at the British School in Athens, where people have just vacated a space, leaving a feeling of loss;  or traces humans leave on their natural surroundings as in Kevin’s ‘Tanera (Ar Dùthaich)’ where people become a part of their wild landscape or shown in Tina’s vegetable portraits, which give evidence of cultivation and care.

About the artists:

Tina Rowe is interested in the machinery and materials of analogue photography. Her work explores and exploits how the use of different formats and processes can strongly affect how photographs are read and understood. Tina is currently working towards her PhD at  University of the Arts London.

Kevin is a museum photographer by day and documentary photographer by night. He has slowly developed a dedicated interest in photography of place, producing a series of documentary projects combining oral history and analogue photography. He has worked for the Science Museum, British Museum and V&A, and has exhibited his documentary work across the UK and in Europe. His first monograph, ‘Tanera (Ar Dùthaich)’, was published in 2018. His latest project, Memory Bank, was published by Scala in Autumn 2023.