In 2014 I had recently returned to the area having spent the previous 18 years in London and overseas. I was looking for a venue that could exhibit a series of photographs I'd taken whilst on commission in Sierra Leone, Malawi and Uganda for a number of different organisations: ActionAid, VSO and Save the children amongst them. The images all explored various aspects of child and maternal health and they were due to be shown as part of the Photo Hastings photography festival (another venue that had been booked had at last minute gone bust and was no longer available) One bright afternoon I stumbled across the Hastings Trust building on Robertson street, it was perfect, white walls and a big glass window. I wandered in and asked if they’d be interested in letting me cover their walls in prints….They said yes.
The opening was on a Saturday afternoon with children climbing the furniture and visitors meandering round them, wine and tea in abundance.
Once ‘Mwana, Miracle of Dawn' was up the Trust asked to extend the run from 2-6 weeks as it was bringing in more visitors from the street than usual. The show ran Oct-Nov 2014. In march 2015 I gave a ‘Photology’ Talk, at the invitation of Alex Bratell, about the making of the photographs, in the basement of Bullet coffee house, also in the Trinity triangle.
The 'Hastings Trust' building later became the home of 'Borough Wines', and more recently has been reimagined as 'Outdoorsman supplies'.
