Visual Arts

This photographic project on people from Bearwood first began when I received a brief from university a year and a half ago on urban environments.

Having grown up and lived in Bearwood all my life, I have a strong connection with this place.

My parents moved here from Handsworth in 1987 to run a corner shop, which they still do, making this August, I'm proud to say, their 20th anniversary.

It’s here that the crux of my photographic project lies, as it’s through my parents shop I’ve got to know so many people in Bearwood over the years.

Having this knowledge I began to explore what ties people to place and what those certain place’s significance can have on individuals.

The idea of community is also a strong theme in my work of Bearwood. For me there has always been a strong community feel, I know all my neighbours and they've always helped my family and vice versa over the years.

Nostalgia

A lot of this, most people said, was to do with the way times have moved on, less children playing out on the streets, too many cars, less people buying and more young people renting houses in the area.

There were others that felt the community still existed in Bearwood, but that this was largely was with the people they had known for years, some decades, living on their street.

My Bearwood

I often think of my parents shop as the cornerstone of Bearwood, of my Bearwood anyway, where people bump into each other and chat away when they're bringing their kids home from school or buying the Sunday papers.

I also realised that despite me thinking I knew everything and had seen everything in Bearwood, I actually hadn't.

Individual stories

I had never been to St Gregory’s catholic church, the place I photographed Rita, or knew that she went there near enough every day despite chatting to her everyday when she collects her newspaper.

Naturally when I asked my mom which place was significant to her she said the shop and if I was going to pick a photograph which represented Bearwood to me then that would be it.

An ongoing project

It's these little surprises and hidden gems that make this a magical project for me to work on.

I strongly believe that every individual has a story to tell and I love that I'm the one getting to tell the story of those people.

I'm hoping to exhibit some of this work one day, maybe even make a book to archive all the individual stories.

More information

Email: jaskirt.dhaliwal@hotmail.com

Web: www.flickr.com/photos/jaskirt