FIGURE.8

Myles Morgan Bailey, Zebra City 

Zebra City is Myles Morgan Bailey’s newest ongoing autobiographical series. Finding stride in 2023, Bailey began building a liminal place that sits between emotions, between fiction and nonfiction, between ethereal and the real. This is achieved through bringing together text and image that amplify each other’s voices.

Encompassing narratives of separation, British/Caribbean heritage and sense of self, this work charts a continued period of significant change which is communicated through wider observations of space, people, poems and passages. Despite it coming from the artist’s point of view, making work in this way is intended to speak on universal ideas of feeling lost. @myles_bailey

Sadie Catt, Nail to the Chestnut Tree 

July 1913, Tottenham, London.

For muddied reasons, Italian immigrant Gino Ferrari shot his brother-in-law and business partner in the jaw, then again through the temple at point-blank range. Relatives and friends shared by both men witnessed the brutal murder at 53 West Green Road – one of multiple confectionaries owned by the family.

Gino fled through the kitchen and over the back wall. Police sent warnings to all ports, obtaining his passport, birth certificate, and bank books. Despite these efforts, Gino evaded arrest and escaped the country. Just days prior, his wife had given birth to what would be their only child.

The succeeding generations of caterers and cafe owners left words unspoken until a small online forum began searching for the story’s end. Whispered memories were exchanged, coaxing others out from the shadows cast by shared histories, attempting to follow the dwindling narrative which proceeded.

The man murdered, Serafino Fazzani, is my great, great grandfather. @sadiecatt

Khatun, In Bloom 

‘In Bloom’ is the depiction of catching a new season of life. Transitioning through turbulent ages, walking through the unknown, head barely above water, feet barely touching the ground. Tender years, hard days. Photographs for this series have been taken for me, to one day enter into my family album. Images of connections, relations – old and new, from my everyday, from my in-betweens, taken in an attempt to document my bloom, and to find some solace in the slowness of it unfolding. @khatunfromleicestercity

Max Ferguson, Whiplash Memorial

Stollen cigarettes on astroturf pitches. Twos on a draw then pedal bike home. Cars race above too fast.
Isn’t the crash inevitable?

Whiplash Memorial is a reminiscing on the spaces between West London’s memories and architecture. The Ladbroke Grove streets where he grew up is the stage, and Ferguson brings together text, photographs and found material in a cryptic love letter to a flyover. The Westway, which has always fascinated him, takes traffic past Ferguson’s childhood flat on one side and Grenfell Tower on the other. The raised section of the A40 is a concrete artery snaking through both North Ken and Whiplash Memorial. @maxferguson

Sapphire Stewart, Untitled

These works are from an ongoing series that began in 2020 but unconsciously existed long before.

Self-portraiture enables me to look inward, to be seen. It gives me voice; it gives me power.

My practice encompasses many purposes which evolve over time. Most crucially, my work is a way to connect. Through making intuitively, I create a space where I can attempt to understand and be most vulnerable – a space where I can heal. @sapphirefwstewart

Billy Barraclough, River Ribble 

The sheep are turned out onto the tops The river overflows after heavy rain The heather is burnt back

The River Ribble cuts its path through the peaty moorland at its source deep within the Yorkshire Dales. Its dark amber water runs through becks, meanders round tight gills, and drops down fosses that dot the path to its wide marshy mouth on the Lancashire coast.

It’s a river that connects all the life within the valley it defines. It’s a river that triggers patterns and cycles within nature that repeat themselves like clockwork. The photographs are made against the backdrop of staying with my Grandad who lives beside the river. A watchmaker by trade who has mended countless timepieces from along the Ribble in his 95 years. We discuss time, the changing landscape, the farmers who drop off pheasants at his doorstep and the dwindling blue tits that visit his garden feeders.

The work is an observation of nature along the Ribble. A river whose geography mirrors my own, with my dad from deep within the Yorkshire dales; and, my mum from coastal Lancashire. Just like the salmon return each autumn to find their home among the Ribble, I find myself migrating against the stream to its source.
A temporary refuge among the moorland, drystone walls, and fells. @billybarraclough

Abena Appiah, And your Destination, you Don’t Know it… 

A blending of reality and dream, fact and fiction.. ‘And your Desination, you Don’t Know it…’ is a series of photos that were the product of happenstance. A visual ode to Patti Smith’s book ‘Year of the Monkey’. The project led to a solo trip retracing the journey across the state of California that Patti took in her memoir. The journey mirrored Patti’s own both physically and emotionally. A pilgrimage of sorts with spontaneity as the main guide. @theaya_

Lewis Khan, Shrovetide

The Atherstone Ball Game has been held every year since 1199. This ancestor of modern football is played with no pitch and minimal rules. On Shrove Tuesday, men converge on the town’s main thoroughfare, brothers in arms for two hours, battling to retrieve the ball.

Shrovetide is an ode to the game’s visceral beauty. Slowed down to 100 frames a second, with the ecstatic rush of shouts and roars replaced by a soothing score. At this tempo, the scene softens. We observe individuals, read the nuance in their split-second expressions and fleeting gestures. Watchfulness stretches into hope, into despair. A passing grab becomes an embrace. Instead of a faceless mass, here are people, portraiture in motion.

Deep sentiment thrums beneath the outward aggression. Though undeniably macho, the game opens up space for male vulnerability, trust and care in a world where men are still discouraged from talking about their struggles. This is no random brawl. There is a beginning and an end, its violence consensual and contained. A release. And when it finishes, no matter what went down, everyone shakes hands.

The West Midlands is where the industrial revolution emerged, with Atherstone once a centre of hatmaking, famous for its felt, and wider Warwickshire home to some of the country’s most productive collieries.
Working in a factory or coal mine, as many men round these parts did, was tough, dangerous graft but the grit it required forged unspoken bonds, a shared identity. Deindustrialisation in the region since the mid 20th century has changed the character of many working class towns. Men who take part in the game describe the confidence, self worth and pride it gives them. A sense of belonging and of ownership. The Atherstone Ball Game is the resilient expression of a collective spirit. A moment to stop and say: this is us, this is ours. @lewis.khan