GRAIN is delighted to have awarded the Format Festival Portfolio Award 2020 to Oliver Raymond Barker for his work ‘Trinity’. This is the fourth occasion that GRAIN has awarded a special prize at Format International Photography Festival.

Oliver Raymond Barker works with the mechanics and alchemy of photography to make images, objects and structures that expand upon what photography is and can be. Working predominantly with alternative analogue techniques he uses photography as a tool to uncover imagined narratives, unseen processes and underlying systems.

Recent exhibitions and displays include Belfast Photo Festival (2019), UNSEEN (2018), Newlyn Art Gallery (2017) & Four Corners Gallery for the London Pinhole Festival (2017).

Trinity engages with the unique ecology of the Rosneath peninsula in Scotland: the landscape itself, the networks visible and invisible that have been imposed upon it and the complex histories embedded in its fabric. Early christian pilgrims voyaged to remote corners of the British isles such as Rosneath in search of sanctuary; peregrini who sought to use the elemental power of nature as a means of gaining spiritual enlightenment. Today, the peninsula is dominated by the presence of HMNB Faslane and RNAD Coulport, the home of the UK’s nuclear deterrent Trident. Existing alongside these sprawling sites are the small, temporary constructions of itinerant activists – locations such as the Peace Wood bear traces of their occupation.

The works made originate from 20 x 24 inch paper negatives, exposed in a unique custom built ‘backpack’ camera obscura – designed to allow creation of large format images in remote locations.

www.oliverraymondbarker.co.uk