Natasha Longridge – Volunteer

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Natasha Longridge – Volunteer

Natasha began volunteering at Belfast Exposed in September 2019. While volunteering, she was studying a media degree at Ulster University in which she focused on the medium of photography. Her time at the gallery provided a space to meet likeminded people with a love for the art, and the work displayed inspired her and many others who visited the exhibitions to pick up the camera. The creative environment in collaboration with her studies helped encourage her own work in a new direction.

“The art of preservation and interpretation that a photograph holds has always drew me in, even glancing through old images that are not of my own; I’ve always questioned the story behind them. Photographs are mysteries that deserve to be explained through the artist’s or capturer’s eye. I utilize the camera to represent the personal, which in doing so hopefully voices the unheard,” Natasha.

Her series entitled ‘The Working Father’, challenges gender roles and the traditional family album; picturing the unseen. Judith Williamson states; “The family is an economic institution with its own structures and ideologies” (family, education photography, p.334), ‘The Working Father’ photographs present the story of single fathers who adapt and incorporate both the stereotypical masculine and feminine into one role.

‘Remembering You’ is a series she developed to rethink what it means to take a photo of loved ones and how that image is interpreted through the generations. Within personal images the photo itself cannot keep a memory alive, but the verbal and literary discussion through the generations does. For example, when looking through old photos we tend to notice that most of them have writing on the back and this tradition is usually written by the person who has taken the photo, these entail the date, place and whom is within the photo. Without this information the image simply becomes a historical document. Through this project she intended to bring the personal to the forefront.

Natasha hopes to pursue photography further through a Masters degree at Ulster University.