Looking at London through the eyes of three contemporary photographers

Bindi Vora

Despite growing up a stone’s throw away from Hampstead Heath, I barely knew it existed until my adult life. I distinctly remember the first time I approached Parliament Hill, choosing whether to snake around the edges or climb up to gaze endlessly at the London skyline hovering between the trees. It’s only now that I realise the significance of this winding, meadowed woodland.

In these works, I want to reflect on the remarkable story of Dido Elizabeth Belle. Born to an enslaved woman of African descent and a British naval officer in the West Indies in 1761, she was brought to London as a child by her father. Her upbringing was entrusted to his uncle, Lord Mansfield, who became Lord Chief Justice and who lived at Kenwood House, which still stands at the edge of the heath. Dido lived for 30 years at Kenwood as an equal part of this aristocratic family; given that Mansfield issued rulings that paved the way for the abolition of slavery in England, some have argued that her presence influenced his judicial decisions. But only one portrait of her is thought to exist.

These collages, using a sectional reproduction of Dido’s portrait, attempt to map memory, time and the physical presences of those that once walked these velvet-green spaces – emphasising how the Heath continues to be a space of nurture and play.

Bindi Vora will be launching her new book “Mountain of Salt”, published by Perimeter Editions, at Offprint, Tate Modern (May 12–14)

Chieska Fortune Smith

Even as a child I could feel it; the feeling of not having firm grounding. With a Japanese mother and an African-American father, my upbringing was filled with layer upon layer of culture, ethnicity and identity. I have moved a lot, living in places as far apart as Virginia in the United States and Tokyo, always in search of my own rhythm.

London feels like my most significant layer yet. The city has just the right amount of bustle. It is where I have found my partner and raised my own family. Most of what and whom I hold dearest is here. London is home. It’s where I have made my own grounding.

London is rooted in timelessness and raw stories, much like my work. I find comfort taking my self-portrait as a reflection in and around this city. There is no manipulation in these images; it is just me, seen through the windows of London. Not quite solid but always present.

Esther Teichmann

The fernery at the Royal College of Art, created in 2012 by the landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, sits within the courtyard of the Darwin building, next to Hyde Park and the Royal Albert Hall. I often look down into this otherworldly oasis, rays of sun dancing across it, mist dripping off the plants.

I came to the RCA as an MA student and have managed not to leave, returning to undertake a PhD and then more recently to teach. Over the past 20 years in which London has been my home, even though I’ve lived and worked abroad, it’s in part been the RCA that has kept me here, the students and now fellow tutors inspiring me to take creative risks.

I’ve been rereading Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are; it was my favourite childhood book and is currently my three-year-old’s favourite too. The fernery always reminds me of Sendak’s pictures there: the familiar and domestic transforming into the unknown. This tension is central to my photographs and films; I try to create alternate fantastical worlds set in beds, swamps, rivers and caves. I look for that feeling of home and also magical possibility, interweaving the autobiographical with theory, myth and psychoanalysis.

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