Live in Stretford? New community photography project needs you!

Stretford Mall, Bruntwood Works and Trafford Council are launching a year-long community generated photography “relay” project.

From Stretford With Love is taking place in collaboration with Manchester-based artist Simon Buckley of Not Quite Light and commences on 22nd July.

Residents of Stretford are being asked to participate by documenting their life for seven days with the Stretford Polaroid Camera.

The community-owned camera will be passed between residents as they each look after the Polaroid for seven days at a time, and document their life and community for that week.

After seven days the camera will be given to the next participant who will take over the role of weekly Stretford photo-diarist.

The photos taken will be passed to Simon Buckley and the team at Stretford Mall who will carefully curate the images to gradually create Stretford Mall’s community generated From Stretford With Love exhibition in a unit at the Mall.

This exhibition will evolve over the course of the year with the images starting to appear from September and the end result will be a community generated piece representing “a year in the life of Stretford”. 

Participants will have only one film containing eight photos, meaning they will have to think hard about the photos they choose to take.

“I’m delighted to be involved in From Stretford With Love… I was a Trafford resident for many years and it’s great to return and celebrate the brilliant community spirit that exists in Stretford,” said Simon.

“I love the idea of giving each person that chance to document their life in such a personal, candid way – and the use of Polaroid makes it more nostalgic, and challenging too in some respects.

“In today’s digital age we’re not used to having to think hard before we click – and I’m looking forward to exploring the possibilities of this project alongside the people of Stretford.”

Andrea George from Bruntwood said: “We’re very excited about launching this project… Stretford is such a community focused neighbourhood, it’s at the heart of everything.

“This is something we want to celebrate – the brilliant people that live here.

“Doing this via photography will mean we’ll get a really unique and  vivid expression of life in Stretford.

“We’re thrilled to be working with the hugely talented SImon Buckley on this too and we can’t wait to see how this wonderful, community powered experiment evolves.”

Cllr Liz Patel from Trafford Council said: “From Stretford With Love is a fantastic community event and we are delighted to be involved.

“This is a great opportunity for the people of Stretford to celebrate their community in a creative way and I can’t wait to see the finished work.

“Trafford Council is proud of all of its communities – you don’t need to be a professional photographer or artist to get involved, we hope to see lots of different views of life in Stretford.”

 Anyone who would like to participate in From Stretford With Love should contact [email protected].