A Spotlight on… ‘Agency’ with Anthony Luvera
This month Open Eye Gallery’s social practice team, Liz Wewiora and Andy Yates visited the current exhibition ‘Agency’, a public realm installation, newspaper and series of events by Anthony Luvera and members of the homeless community in Coventry. Here’s what they had to say about the project.
As you arrive into Coventry, you are immediately struck by the development taking place around the train station and approach to the town centre. New buildings, construction and a quickly changing skyline sit alongside a buzzing feeling of place, with Coventry celebrating and showcasing the outputs of its City of Culture UK programme.
As you make your way into the heart of the town centre, you pass Warwick Row, a road historically associated with the real estate industry; the ‘property row’ if you like. It is here where you can stumble across a new project and exhibition, Agency until 28th October.
Agency is a new body of work by the socially engaged artist Anthony Luvera. Created in collaboration with people who have experienced homelessness in Coventry, the commission forms part of Coventry UK City of Culture and extends the ongoing work Luvera made with people experiencing homelessness in towns and cities across the United Kingdom for almost twenty years.
The project initially started pre-pandemic, with planning, consultation and recruitment of individuals to take part but finally in 2021, Luvera was able to meet with and invite participants to use disposable cameras to document their experiences and places in the city that are significant to them. Participants were also invited to use digital medium format camera equipment in order to work on the production of a self-portrait for the artist’s ongoing series Assisted Self-Portraits. To make these portraits, the participants would choose locations important to them, and the artist would teach the individual how to use the digital medium format camera equipment with a tripod, handheld flash gun, cable shutter release and a laptop to capture their image on their own terms.
The final portraits are exhibited along Warwick Row, using signage boards synonymous with for sale and let signs, referencing the road’s association with real estate. The exhibition and an accompanying free community newspaper where you can see more of the process and disposable camera images created, form part of HOME: Arts and Homelessness Festival taking place throughout the city. The exhibition and newspaper aren’t to be seen as the final outputs of the project, however, with Luvera seeing both as a stimulus for further discussion and action for people to raise awareness about homelessness. The artist now hopes to continue working with the individuals involved in the project to set up their own photography group who can continue through images to articulate their lived experience and aspirations for the future. The work reflects the importance of process and durational approach needed to support projects which seek to bring people together and highlight voices in society often or otherwise unheard.
Image Credits: Agency, by Anthony Luvera and homeless communities of Coventry, photo by Andy Yates, 2021.
