Nightmares and Daymoths – Hannah Guy

Solo show of work BA Fine Art graduate Hannah Guy, created from a participatory staged photography project funded by a Berkofsky Award from the University of Leeds and taking place at HEART in Leeds.

This large-scale body of work retrospectively examines relationships to the pandemic, four years on. Through a collaborative series of three staged photographs, Hannah conveys her own experiences alongside those of two friends.

Drawing from a study of her friends' dreams, Hannah builds upon a research method developed in her dissertation, exploring the interplay between memory, dreams and image. Set in Settle, near Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire, Hannah navigates and connects three dream narratives of grief, jealousy, and solemnity. The continued appearance of the viaduct serves as a connective thread, as each friend's dream performance unfolds uniquely in their own light. 

Hannah's photographs created for the project will be revealed for the first time in this exhibition.

Venue

Headingley Enterprise and Arts Centre (HEART)
Bennett Road
Leeds LS6 3HN

Opening times

See HEART website for exhibition opening times.

Private view/closing night: Thursday 15, 7-9pm. All welcome!

About Hannah Guy

Hannah Guy (BA Fine Art 2024) is an emerging fine art photographer based in Leeds. Specialising in photography and the handmade creation of LED engineered lightboxes, Hannah practices the photographic restoration of dreams into highly detailed staged tableau-vivants. Often in direct collaboration with family and friends, Hannah imposes order upon fragments of dreamt realities by crafting large-scale photographic scenes enlivened in various narratives.

Hannah Guy's light box installation for Sardines BA Fine Art Degree Show at the University of Leeds, June 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.

The work originates from the process of visually translating a range of written dream journals into whole finite scenes. By drawing from a broad spectrum of dreamscapes – spanning from vivid nightmares to prophetic visions – Hannah’s photographs are rich in carefully placed paradoxes, the use of light symbolism and allegories, shaping the aesthetic trajectory of the work.

By technical methods of lighting design and long exposure photography, Hannah loosely adheres to the conventions of the documentary photograph whilst querying and exhausting the cinematic potentials of the image. In an effort to delve into recurring motifs and symbols encountered in dreams, Hannah's constructed photographed realities seek to stimulate psychoanalytic contemplation of the commonplace elements of our subconscious.

Hannah has exhibited in Leeds Summer Group Show 2023, Sunny Bank Mills’ Ones To Watch 2024 and was commissioned to photograph and animate Light Can Also Rhyme for Light Night Leeds 2023 in collaboration with poet, Zaffar Kunial. A set of Hannah’s long exposure photographs were showcased at the BA Fine Art Degree Show 2024, Sardines.

Hannah Guy, "In The Woods We Could Have Had Fun, Couldn't We?", 2024. Showcased at Sardines BA Fine Art Degree Show at the University of Leeds, June 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.

Hannah was the recipient of one of this year’s Berkofsky Awards from the University of Leeds, funded by a generous legacy from the late Hugh Berkofsky.

Find out more about Hannah Guy.

Follow Hannah on Instagram @hannahguyartwork

Feature image

Behind the Scenes by Ribblehead Viaduct. Photo courtesy: Krishan Bhaidas.