Midnight Sun – exhibition

Fine Art alumni Hannah Guy & Imo Dunkley present ‘Midnight Sun’ a month-long photography show honouring, listening to and considering night time as a place for freedom and possibility.

Hannah and Imo first connected as Fine Art students in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, each drawn to the other’s distinctive approach to night-time photography. Now, they’ve come together to present a collection of work that reflects the evolution of their practices over the past two years.

Hannah’s practice is based in fabricating participatory staged photographs enriched in socially engaged dream narratives, whilst Imo uses a documentative approach, photographing Leeds nightlife scenes as they naturally occur.

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. The work originates from the process of visually translating a range of written dream journals into whole finite scenes.

In her recent work, funded by the Berkofsky Award, Hannah delves into the dreams of her friends to explore the intricate connections between memory, dreams, and image—a research method she initially developed in her dissertation. Set in Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire, Hannah navigates and intertwines three dream narratives of grief, jealousy, and solemnity in response to the lingering after effects of the pandemic four years on.

About Imo Dunkley

Imo Dunkley (BA Fine Art 2023) presents photography from her ongoing project Praising Spaces where she explores the utility of nightlife spaces, emphasising their importance in harnessing creativity, scene-building & facilitating identity formation. Imo uses the editing process as a tool to create stories, using heightened editing and colouration to create dramatic depictions of nightlife.

Inspired by artists such as Wolfgang Tillmans, Nan Goldin and Abdi Alasow, Imo uses the camera to interrogate and celebrate post-lockdown nightlife culture - the spaces it occupies, the motifs that reoccur and the feelings it emulates. She hopes to spark conversations about their endless functions, as well as the increasing fragility of community-focused, independent venues.

 

Venue

North Bar
24 New Briggate
Leeds LS1 6NU

Feature image

Work by Imo Dunkley and Hannah Guy. Images © the artists.