Origins & Overview
Participant Val Tyminski chatting with visitors at Settling display at Big Feast Festival, 2017
Opening night at Settling exhibition, Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent, 2019
Settling began as a 3 month, summer residency with local arts organisation Appetite (Part of Arts Council England funded Creative People and Places programme) and photography producer GRAIN projects. The brief, co-designed by the local community, was to create a display for the local festival The Big Feast ‘17 on the topic of human migration to Stoke, using local people’s personal photo albums. The stories Ivin discovered during the residency were so fascinating and poignant he decided to apply for Arts Council England funding to expand the work.
Settling explores the different stories of people who have moved to Stoke-on-Trent from around the world. Settling was supported by GRAIN Projects, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Appetite and Arts Council England and was exhibited at Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Hanley from May to September 2019. Made in collaboration with local residents, Settling is a series of diptych portraits that tell the stories of people who have moved to Stoke-on-Trent from around the world. Stories include the life journey of World War Two veteran Walerian Tyminski, Pat Phillips the wife and business partner of a local artist, and Aida Haughton’s story on finding love in post-war Bosnia & Herzegovina.
Find out more about the exhibition here.
Sam Ivin
Sam Ivin is a photographic artist whose work focuses on social issues and the people connected with them. His pictures attempt to demonstrate the impact situations have on his subjects. By documenting their stories and perspectives he hopes to provide a more personal, tangible understanding of them. He studied Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales, Newport graduating in 2014.
Sam Ivin gifting the Settling digital community archive being to Stoke-on-Trent City Archives, Chris Muchin received the deposit.
Since then he has been awarded numerous significant photography prizes including the Magnum Photos Graduate Photographers Award, May 2017,The GMC First Prize, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, March 2017, the Best Graduate Single Image, Runner Up, British Journal of Photography (BJP) Breakthrough Award 2016 and the Winner of Best Single Image, Human Category at Renaissance Photography Prize 2015.
Visit Sam Ivins’ website here.