When you photograph, do you ever think how photography can be a tool for change? If photography boosts your wellbeing, do you ever think how it might do so all the more if you used it to lobby, to push for reform? I recently heard about photographer Tish Murtha (1956-2013), who used her cameras to open up lives out of view, on Tyneside, and whose daughter has now made a film about her life and work.
As an arts for wellbeing practitioner, seeing how art and creativity can really boost mood and lift spirits, I usually focus on personal wellbeing itself. Running art for wellbeing challenges and leading an NHS group, I see people share how art relaxes and calms them, gives them something positive to focus on in dark times, a way to have some time to themselves. The experience itself is the focus. But I'm always thinking about different ways creativity can help, different possible impacts and ideas to try. So I respond to the idea that using art – and specifically here photography – to press for change, could also help your own wellbeing. Channelling sadness or frustration can be positive,
After all, depression and low mood have many causes, personal and wider, but issues and news and injustices play their part. I know people who find the news so depressing that they go out of their way not to watch or listen to it anymore, or who need a news fast from time to time. One way the news depresses people is by making them feel powerless. You're confronted with real wrongs or tragedies or injustice and then left with little or no way to make a difference in response. And obviously with many issues, it's unlikely you or I will be able to do anything. But people have long found new and creative ways to be heard and seen, to respond, to raise awareness. These imaginative ideas can sit alongside the mainstream, where politics happens. Take the movement to end Britain's slave trade in 1807. There were meetings and petitions, there was a sugar boycott, there was – finally – an Act of Parliament. But along the way there was a famous image: that of an enslaved man asking "Am I not a man and a brother?" which came to personify the movement. Image, visual memory, can be powerful.
That's why war art and war photography have had real impact over the years in showing conflict on the ground. And that's why Tish Murtha used photography to record and share the everyday realities of disadvantaged and marginalized communities in Newcastle and London.
What causes or issues do you think most about? What images could symbolize how you feel about them? Causes come and go, some endure, others fade. The climate emergency has gained ground lately, and the sense of urgency many of us feel could fuel creativity. The struggles of the UK's NHS could be another inspiration, very close to home. Then there are perennial and vital issues like trade justice and raising living standards across the globe.
Even just thinking what everyday image you could photograph, or draw or paint, to sum up an issue could focus and concentrate your mind. Maybe a clothing label, a traffic jam, or a crowded hospital department. Some photographers travel overseas to record climate change. But we're all surrounded by images here and now that can show something of what's happening. And today, sharing and tagging online, maybe on Instagram, X or Facebook can have an impact on a wider audience.
It would be great if you have any thoughts or experiences to share in Medley's Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/359291215486002 Thank you.
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