Rita Pena: Adding a Different Vision To The Neighbourhood’s Stereotypical Perception

Rita:  I’m Portuguese and I grew up in Portugal, but when I was a teen I moved to Nottingham. I have lived here all my adult life. I started photography as a hobby about seven years ago, because there’s a big photography scene in Nottingham. We had a community darkroom where I attended events where I learnt how to print, which is where my practice started. In that space they also had a beautiful photo book library. I was pushed to look at photography as more than just one image through looking at all the books they had. That’s when I started taking it more seriously because I understood I could share ideas through photography.

The Meadows was the first long term project I’ve completed. I am also starting a different project that is a bit more personal and research heavy. It is about how national identities get constructed, looking at the context of being Portuguese and everything that comes with that.

Anna: What did initially draw you to making work about  Meadows, and how did that first impression shape the direction of the project?

Rita: I moved into the Meadows, and about a month after I moved is when I started wanting to do a project about it. Part of that is that the Meadows is a neighborhood in Nottingham that historically, has a bad reputation for being a challenging area with a high rate of crime. However, that’s not what I experienced in the neighborhood. 

Initially, I was trying to share the way that I pictured the neighborhood and its community through taking pictures of the area in the way that I saw them. So, at the beginning, the project was very intuitive and I was just following my gut.

I started to look back at what I’d taken pictures of, and by doing some research on the neighborhood, the things that I was interested in were based on a specific urban planning method (Radburn planning model, focused on separating pedestrian and vehicular traffic). From there onwards, it gave me a theme of looking at physical spaces and the interactions with communities and how they shape each other.

I developed this project in three stages, the first being just me going out for one hour a week and constantly making work. At this point I didn’t really interact with the community, but I lived in the neighbourhood, so knew quite a lot of the community groups. This stage was just me by myself and because I am a bit shy I tend to avoid photographing people, so I focused on the space. 

At the time, there was a new community group that focused a lot on the climate and climate actions within the neighbourhood. They created a growing group in the community allotment which I engaged with. This community group’s hub is actually where I am going to be showing some of this work later on in the year. 

In the second stage of the project, I wanted to highlight the amount of different groups that exist or have existed in the neighbourhood. Sadly, some of the groups no longer exist because of things like funding being cut. During this stage, I was photographing the spaces that make those groups work. 

Before working with young people from the community, I ran workshops in a local school and there was already a relationship between the school and the photography community in Nottingham which helped build some confidence before moving on to engaging with young people in the community which was the third and final stage of the project. Together me and the local young people created a story of what the neighbourhood would be like in 20 years, and over the course of this school year we have been translating it into photographs.

Anna: What a journey it has been! How does the Radburn planning model continue to influence everyday life in the Meadows today?

Note: The Radburn planning model, was developed in the late 1920s and is an urban planning approach that prioritises pedestrian safety and convenience by separating pedestrian and vehicular traffic

Rita: When I pass around the Meadows in those specific areas that follow the design method, I just see a lot of kids playing outside. I think that’s something that’s very rare nowadays. The Radburn Planning method put the gardens facing each other, so, there’s a lot of green space, and I think that people value that a bit more. You see people taking care of the gardens and communal areas by taking weeds out and planting flowers for bees, for example. 

Because the gardens face each other and the area is pedestrian friendly, it makes it a safe space for kids to be able to go and play. Nowadays, it’s quite hard to have that experience. There’s a lot of pedestrian walkways within these green spaces and a lot of the concerns that residents had with this planning method have to do with the perception that it was hard for the police to stay on top of crime because their cars couldn’t access the space. 

I had a chat with a resident that had lived in the area for a long time, from the point that the urban planning was developed, and it was actually the residents’ idea to have a CCTV presence. When I was asking for a reason, they said that they felt like those spaces are used differently since the cameras have been installed, which I find really interesting.

I’m sure there were also other residents that probably did not like that there was CCTV, but I think the interesting thing for me was that I wasn’t expecting it to be the residents asking for them, and also the agency that they had over the space because they wanted to do something to make positive change without vilifying poverty, which I think is important. 

Anna: You describe the tone of your work as romantic and hopeful. How do you see this approach challenging the dominant narratives around working-class or historically stigmatised communities in the UK?

Rita: I’m trying to challenge and not challenge at the same time. I think nowadays we need to look at the mainstream narrative or perceptions of a topic – in this case, what a neighborhood is – and that needs to inform our own work. 

We need to figure out if we are just creating this style of work because that’s what everyone else did in the past, or we are bringing a different lens and bringing more diversity to the representation of the neighborhood. It’s not that the work done before was necessarily wrong, it’s more that there needs to be more voices and more perspectives to have a bigger, more complete view of complex topics, I guess.

Nowadays because we’re so aware of everything that’s going on in the world, it can be quite overwhelming. And people feel like no matter what they do, nothing really happens. I feel like there’s a sense of resignation as a result of not feeling like you have a voice. This was also my own experience. Seeing the neighborhood I lived in in a romantic way and engaging with its different communities, in my personal life and through the practice, and doing it in a local way makes you able to see the results of that, and then you feel less hopeless. So that’s part of the reason as well. You need to be able to have faith and hope in something, even if it’s by romanticising it because that can lead to action and to feeling less despair.

Anna: What did you learn from the young people’s interpretations of the neighbourhood,  both through their photography and their imagined futures?

Rita: We had these big discussions about what made their neighborhood different from the other ones and about the things that they really appreciated and liked about it. They really loved the schools, library and places of worship, so they were all places where people come together. 

There’s also diversity within the neighborhood and the school itself is very diverse and the kids are so open and curious, even in me and my background. They were asking me which language I speak and what food is typical for my country. I think that openness is really nice. It’s not surprising, but it’s still refreshing.

In terms of how they imagined their future, I was thinking they were just going to focus on positive things, but that’s not the case. There was a resolution through art, which is also very nice, but there is a conflict and it just shows how kids are aware of what goes on in the world and how much that also shapes what they think their future will be like. So challenging. That’s also important. 

Anna: How do you see the act of documenting through photography or storytelling, as a form of community empowerment or resistance?

Rita: By instigating the community to document themselves. So not just taking pictures. It can help the community shape the narrative that is being said about themselves, which in turn can be very powerful in terms of funding. I guess I wouldn’t say empowerment. I think it’s a very heavy word. In a way the community always had that power themselves and you’re not the one giving them power, at least I don’t feel I am. You’re sort of just hopefully catalyzing something. People will also only respond if they’re already curious and are open to it.

There’s a couple of kids that like taking photographs, but there’s also a couple kids that really enjoy taking pictures and that ask me about other stuff going on, or where they can get a camera. And I think there’s something really good because  it’s also a very diverse area. Some families, they’ve never had education, like university or anything like that. So the school I am working with did a university program with the students where we had a photography course, and that’s how I first started working with them. So I think it shows them that there’s options that they can do whatever they would like. 

Part of this work was supported by the Make it Easy and University of Nottingham residency. I think with the residency, I was also able to bring in resources. In that sense maybe there was some sort of empowerment: to give and share the resources I was given with people that maybe didn’t have access to them otherwise.

Anna: Looking ahead, what are your hopes for the Meadows community,  and how do you see your work contributing to its ongoing story?

Rita: A lot of the community groups I engaged with are mainly frequented by older generations. They have the availability, they have the time, but there are also other community groups where younger people and young adults are also getting involved. My hope is that there is always generation renewal within these community organisations and spaces so that this kind of work continues. 

One of my colleagues doing the residency was photographing an older ladies line dancing group, and the two of us just went for a whole summer. We went every week, and we just did it because we enjoyed it. When I’m older, I also would like something like that to still exist. That means that right now I also need to do something to maintain those groups and structures. 

That’s what I’m hoping for in terms of the future of the Meadows. I think especially in the last five years, the perception of the neighborhood has really changed because of all these great institutions, and I just hope to add to that. 

I’m sure some of the kids are going to keep taking pictures of their neighborhood and the people they love and the spaces they love. 

It’s not just me. There are other initiatives in some of the universities and in the photography community. So there are more opportunities for them to keep pursuing free creative options. And that makes me really excited as well. I think that maybe some of them will keep taking pictures and that is enough. 

Anna: What is next for Rita Pena?

Rita: Putting on a show! I’m coming to the end of the project, so over the summer I am planning and putting together an exhibition with the help of my friend and curator (Anu Gamanagari), which will be open from September. This is when all the kids will be back to school and can come and see the work framed and in a community space. 

I also need to take some time to look back at the experience and the methods I have used, and reflect a bit and see how I can bring those co-creation methods into my other projects, which is something I would like to continue to do in the future. But for now, I need some time to reflect on what worked well, what could be improved. 

Rita’s project offers a quiet and thoughtful comment about contemporary places and community. At a time when working-class communities are too often framed through deficit or decline, this project invites us to look again with care, and with hope. It reminds us that the everyday spaces people shape and tend to are full of meaning. It’s an important, timely piece of work that contributes meaningfully to broader conversations around belonging, representation, and the role of local knowledge in shaping the future.

Born and raised in Cascais, Portugal and now residing in the UK Rita is a researcher and photographer whose practice interrogates the themes of identity, community, and belonging.

Rita first moved to the UK to pursue her education eventually completing a PhD in Computer Science. It was during that time that Rita developed an interest in photography. Her photographic practice serves as a sensemaking tool of her place in the world, through long-term projects.

Rita took part in the University of Nottingham and Make it Easy Lab 2023 Residency Program. As part of the program Rita took part in a group exhibition hosted at Beam Gallery, Nottingham. Out of the six residents who took part in the program, she was one of the two chosen to extend the residency for further development of the project.

In 2025 she took part in the East Meets West Masterclass for emergent UK photographers, which culminated in a group exhibition at FORMAT Festival. Rita is currently being mentored by Thi My Lien Nguyen as part of the Centre de la Photographie Geneve’s 2025 mentorship program.

Images taken by young people involved in the project.