STILL LIFE

For two years Henry Bell and Angela Catlin documented the pandemic in Glasgow through their poems and photographs. In dialogue with each other and the city around them, they recorded their shared isolation, the panic of the early pandemic, the unease and the peace of lockdown, the increasing frustration and political anger and the astonishing highs and lows of a country going through a historic crisis. The photographs and poems in  STILL LIFE offer a glimpse of the grief, fear, solidarity and moments of joy that the experience of Covid-19 brought to Scotland.

From boarded up streets to mass demonstrations, quiet moments marking Eid to Rangers fans tearing up the streets, the many faces and voices of this city are documented in this exhibition and accompanying book.

Henry Bell is a writer living on the Southside of Glasgow.  He is one of the editors of Gutter Magazine and has edited books including A Bird is Not a Stone, a collection of Palestinian poetry in translation. His biography of John Maclean was published in 2018 and was praised by Jackie Kay as ‘beautifully structured and brilliantly written.’ In 2019 he received a New Writers Award for poetry from the Scottish Book Trust and his pamphlets include The Last Lochan (2020) and Inner Circle (2022). He is currently working on a history of the red flag.

‘Henry Bell is one of the finest young poets in this country with a lucid, lyrical and always accessible voice.’ – Liz Lochhead, poet and playwright

Angela Catlin is a freelance photographer with over 30 years experience. She has covered stories from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, to gang violence in Guatemala and people trafficking in Burkina Faso. In 2012 she was awarded a 3 month fellowship in documentary photography, with The British School at Rome. During her time in Rome she focused on street photography and urban landscape, Catlin is known for her ‘Natural Light’ portraits of Scottish writers, taken across her career and capturing Scotland’s most celebrated poets.

‘Angela Catlin tells stories of joy, pain, humour and hope, finding common truths in human experience, whether in Iraq or Scotland. Catlin’s work, made during the Covid 19 pandemic, will resonate with communities across the globe. She is at the top of her game.’ – Kathleen Morgan, editor of The Royal Photographic Society Journal