A photographic exhibition featuring work made around the Stroud District launched at the Subscription Rooms on Tuesday evening.
Organised by author and illustrator Tom Percival, Here We Are features work donated by photographers embracing many different styles and genres, and sales of prints, cards and merchandise will raise money for Stroud District Foodbank – this evening raising £768.
Amanda Strover, manager of the Foodbank, said: “We’re always really touched by the Stroud community, whether they be artists or musicians, or just the general public coming together and raising much-needed funds for food banks.
“It just shows the strength of our community that we care about one another, we care about our neighbours not being able to afford to eat. It’s a really huge evening for us and we’re very grateful.
“This week brings the release of our mid-year statistics covering the period from April – September, and it is with a sombre tone that we share the findings. Over the past six months, we distributed a staggering 4,047 emergency parcels across the district, marking the highest mid-year statistics in our history—a headline we hoped never to write.
“This year has brought extraordinary challenges to our community. Initiatives like this fundraiser play a crucial role in sustaining our efforts to make a real impact and transform lives. Your support means the world.”
The exhibition is open from 10-4 each day this week in the Sub Rooms’ George Room, up to and including Saturday 18th November.
Tom told Stroud Times: “I wanted to use creativity – which has bought me an awful lot – to help other people in some way, so everything we’re selling is raising money for the Stroud District Foodbank.
“I’m also running workshops with youth groups to encourage them to engage in photography, and hopefully down the line, other creative activities.
“Every stage has been really exciting – I’d get the pictures through from the photographers, and then I print them, get them framed and that’s really exciting, every step of the way has been really, really fun.
“On the morning of Saturday 18th there are two free photographic workshops. A family-focused session at 9.30am encouraging parents and children to have creative fun with whatever camera they have to hand, and a more specialist session at 11am designed to help keen amateur photographers develop their technical skills and improve their photography.
“The theme of the exhibition is a love of all things Stroud. Celebrating the places, the people, the initiatives and communities that inspire us and made us choose this place as our home. Basically, it’s a collection of photographs that convey Stroud’s unique energy and spirit – whatever the individual’s interpretation of that energy and spirit may be.
“Long term, the aim is to develop Here We Are so we can put on larger scale events and exhibitions that will all feed in to our local community, encouraging everyone in the area to engage with art and creativity, of all forms, offering workshops and skill-development sessions, alongside exhibitions, multimedia experiences and gigs that will all be run as fund-raising activities to help support vulnerable groups in the area who might be struggling in some way.”
For more information visit: thesubrooms.co.uk/whats-on/here-we-are-943
Stroud District Foodbank | Helping Local People in Crisis
Pictures by Matt Bigwood
