Local students create exhibition for Portchester Castle

The youngsters from Priory School and Portsmouth Grammar School worked with artists Eva Jonas and Maya Brasington on the exhibition which was on display as an installation within the castle’s keep.

Two wooden structures hold the students’ work on layered fabric. The layers frame the images allowing visitors to peer through webs of creative processes in light, shadow, rubbings and traces through which they aimed to echo the uncovering and rediscovery of remnants of the past.

A third structure presents mapping undertaken by students, creating a map that emphasises the sensorial method of ‘feeling out’ and encountering a space steeped in colonial history.

The students’ work reflects upon ‘traditional’, Western notions of cartography, instead presenting ideas of history as ever evolving.

Eva and Maya said: “We invited students to bring a thoughtful approach by considering how lived experiences inform historical understanding.

“We wove this awareness into our ‘creative gathering processes’, making and recording traces of hidden, sensitive and untold histories held within heritage sites.”

Professor Kate Astbury, whose research team has uncovered the history of the Caribbean people brought to the castle as prisoners of war, said: “I’m so pleased that we’re able to showcase the work that Eva and Maya did in the two schools as an exhibition – the students got so much out of the project and their work will hopefully inspire others to look at the site with fresh eyes.”

Juliette Buss, head of learning and engagement at Photoworks, which led the programme, added: “This is an important project that has brought together artists, historians, and history and photography teachers in school to demonstrate the power of photography to tackle complex subjects with young people in sensitive and creative ways.”