Today (Friday) I went on a community walk, a collaboration between The New Art Exchange Nottingham , The National Justice Museum and Communities Inc. It was a historical walk through the Lace Market, exploring Crime, Law and Freedom from both past and present day perspectives.
It was a diverse set of walkers. We started at the Justice Museum, visited St. Mary’s Church and weaved our way past several historic landmarks.
As we set off a young lady started talking to me. I asked her if she was one of the Nottingham Trent Uni’ students (the group had about 6 students who were working with Communities Inc). She told me she was from the Nottingham Contemporary Art Gallery (which is on the same street as the Museum). The gallery were thinking of holding similar events to this and she was here representing the art gallery.
I introduced myself to her and shook her hand. This is Ella, she graduated from Nottingham university in the summer and now works at the art gallery in media, communications and marketing. As we walked through the Lace market we continued a dialogue. Ella is from Leeds, really loves living in Nottingham and considers it her home. I told her Leeds was a good city as one of my daughters went to Uni’ there.
I told Ella, I may have photographed a colleague of hers for my 100 strangers project, Jade (stranger 112). I showed Ella, the photo of Jade, but she did not recognise her, saying she may have left.
We walked around the Lace Market in the rain, the historian leading the walk told us some stories related to justice and one of the team from the New Art Exchange asked us to do some yoga exercises to loosen up for the walk. It was quite a surreal experience, 30+ people doing yoga in the rain in a church graveyard !
After the walk we were invited back to the museum for a coffee (all this is free btw) and the group were encouraged to discuss issues relating to “freedom”. Ella asked me if I was going for a coffee and I said yes. I asked Ella if she would like to be one of my strangers after our coffee. I said I could photograph her outside her workplace as their might be some good light near the gallery on a grey day. Ella was very enthusiastic about the idea and after the discussion (more about that in my next stranger) we walked to the Contemporary Gallery for a little photoshoot.
Ella liked the photos I showed her on the camera. I gave her my card and she went off to her workplace and I made my way home to take Ruby out for her walk.
Later in the afternoon, I got a really nice email from Ella, saying it was nice to meet me and she enjoyed the walk. She had looked at my photostream and seen three people she knew, including fellow poet Jesse (from 2 weeks ago). She also said she really liked my photography :)
So that’s it , it was a good morning, a nice community walk, albeit in the rain and a really nice stranger in Ella
Thanks for being stranger number 208 Ella, good luck as you start your career post University .
Find out more about the project and see pictures taken by other photographers at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
https://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers
My own strangers can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57144254@N08/albums/72157657822400168
