Pass The Camera: works by Edwin Mingard

PASS THE CAMERA
Collaboration as filmmaking practice through the films of Edwin Mingard

Edwin’s work stands at the intersection of film and social change. Pass the camera is a curation of his films that were made in collaboration with the protagonists, tackling homelessness, the inhospitable nature of modern cities, injustice or bureaucratic corruption. The films are made with those that are often pushed to the margins, that go unheard. In his work people are not just subjects, they are co-authors as they use the camera and the medium as a way to tell their stories, while the filmmaker acts as a facilitator or a platform. Each character has agency over how they are portrayed.

THE SCREENING WILL BE FOLLOWED BY A Q&A.

Edwin Mingard is an artist and filmmaker based in London. He was the winner of a Jury Special Mention at IDFA (2020), was selected as a Bloomberg New Contemporary (2020), was longlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize (2021) and is a Film London Lodestar (2022). His latest film, H Is For Hostile Environment, was premiered by Chisenhale Gallery in 2022 and is currently in festivals. He is currently developing a new feature length film.

h is for hostile environment
33 mins — 4k video — colour — 2022

H Is For Hostile Environment is a new moving image work made in collaboration with researcher Dr Keren Weitzberg. The work aims to provide a space for people who have suffered under the UK’s border regime to speak about their experiences, whilst also celebrating the rich contribution that people who’ve moved to the UK from overseas have made to our shared social and cultural life. The work comprises 26 sections, each made in collaboration with a partner who has first-hand
experience of the issues at hand. Each section is developed, and then collaboratively made, together. The Hostile Environment is the name given by then-Home Secretary Theresa May to a basket of government policies which aimed to co-opt large parts of UK society into policing the UK’s borders — from doctors to landlords, employers, homeless services and more. The policy had the stated aim of combatting ‘illegal immigration’ but had real-world, devestating effects on the lives of many thousands of people who live in the UK with migrant heritage. Its most notorious effect was the Windrush Scandal, where large numbers of people of Caribbean heritage, who had lived in the UK for decades and should have enjoyed full citizenship rights, were barred from employment, healthcare, education, benefits and more, and faced mass deportation at the hands of the Home Office.

an intermission
22 mins — Colour — 4k video, scanned super16mm and 35mm film — 2020

A portrait of contemporary Britain as seen through the eyes of a group of young people (age 14–21) experiencing homelessness. Edwin taught members of the group how to use high-end film equipment, which they often operated together. They watched films about homelessness and precarity, and talked about the way people in their situation are represented. Participants led a small tour of places that had meaning for them around the city, curated a public exhibition in a city centre art gallery, and wrote bits of text to those in the outside world who haven’t experienced the things that they have.

“The overwhelming feeling I had from the young people who took part was a desire to be seen as human beings — people who laugh, cry, are angry and happy, and who have unique experiences and something to say. I tried to make a piece of work which did some justice to that. “ — Edwin Mingard

walk
1.5 mins — 2k Digital — Colour — 2017

Walk is part of a series of films exploring the experience of being in London at night. It was made with a group largely comprised of strangers over a 12-hour period, overnight from sunset to sunrise. I instigated informal discussions about participants’ experiences of the city, and from these wrote a narrative, part live action and part poetic voiceover, which we recorded on the journey.

somewhere else
1.5 mins — S16mm — B&W — 2014

A short film experiment with a durational element, part of a visual research series exploring the experience of being in a city at night.

"We filmed overnight, from sundown to sunrise, with a group of self-selecting participants, and wrote a fictional narrative performed as a voiceover. We travelled through central London and along the river. I filmed on 16mm, and after we finished shooting, I processed the film using water drawn from the river we’d travelled along, and the same day’s sun that can be seen rising at the end of the film." — Edwin Mingard