Yallah

About

As part of a new ongoing project, Auto-Italia is inviting artists to produce work for the outside of the building. This will change or accumulate every month in parallel to the programme happening inside. This project questions how artists tackle the scale, limitations and site of the façade, and how a practice might be translated into a single image. Transcriptions will be available online from interviews with the artists surrounding the issues raised in each project. The opening piece by photographer Benjamin Thomas is taken from a body of work he recently completed whilst in Gaza. He had proposed to work with a Palestinian women's football team until the political situation escalated and he found himself immersed in the centre of a full-scale conflict zone where he began documenting what he witnessed. Benjamin Thomas is a 20 year old photographer based in London. He is primarily interested in creating bodies of work that form non fiction stories, falling somewhere around the lines of documentary photography or photojournalism. He works both inside and outside of the constraints of news media, trying to find different approaches and audiences. He is currently studying Photojournalism at the London College of Communication. Previous to this he began working as a social worker in South America before a chance meeting with photographer Brian Frank changed his direction. Subsequent work in Mexico focused on recycling and trash removal, and the inequalities surrounding such basic services in Mexico City. He is currently working on a long term project documenting the lives of Irish Traveler communities in Southwark, one of which is on Glengall Road, where Auto-Italia is located. His work has recently been featured in The Wall Street Journal and his clients include Polaris and Redux picture agencies.