Jermaine Francis

Jermaine Francis is a multi-disciplinary artist working primarily with photography and video. His practice is characterized by investigations into the parameters of these mediums and how they shape our understanding of visual culture. He explores their roles in storytelling and the construction of memory within contemporary and historical narratives.

Notable exhibitions include:

• The International Centre of Photography New York
• The National Portrait Gallery London
• Haus Wien Austria
• Galeriepcp Paris
• Centre of British Photography London
• The Saatchi Gallery London
• Pembroke JCR Gallery Photo Oxford
• The Camden Arts Centre
• Sherbet Green London
• Peckham 24 Photo Festival 2024
• The Depot Contemporary art Festival 2024
• The Impression Gallery Bradford
• The V&A Lates
• The Glass Tank Oxford Brookes University and ‘Soulscapes’ at Dulwich picture Gallery London
• JW Turner Changing Visions of Landscapes Norwich Museum
• Photo London.

Jermaine has also co-curated the group show ‘Notes on a Native Son, After Baldwin’ 2023 edition of Peckham 24 Photo Festival.

Jermaine will be speaking with Deborah Ireland on Friday 17 July at 1.45pm.

Two photographs, a forgotten history

This is the story of two photographs, taken by two very different photographers, using different processes, taken within three years of each other, divided by a continent.

Both are a testament to the same forgotten history, which is not clear or easy to read and open to misinterpretation. By researching the photographers, their process and intent, it is possible to unravel an account which we forget at our peril.

These photographs should have been impossible to take in the 1860s because of the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, with full emancipation in 1838. These photographs, taken in 1860 and 1863 tell a different story.