Rain fell for most of the day on 1st February. I tried to make photographs with my pinhole camera but the exposure times were too long and things did not go well. I also made photographs with my digital camera, trying to capture the materiality of the landscape and also the softness of the light.
The underpass has many manifestations.
Over the last week I have made 3 visits to lawrence Hill roundabout, making images on 4 different cameras. Three of those cameras were classical film cameras and contained monochrome film. Here are a selection of photographs documenting the landscape in monochrome, in classical documentary style.
Mamiya 7 with 65mm f4 lens
Ilford Titan 4 x 5 Pinhole
Canham 5×7 inch Traditional
I need to return to make more photographs with the pinhole camera, but otherwise I have most of the images to start making enlargements and to begin considering the pop-up exhibition.
This is a developing study, with a vision it will end with a pop-up exhibition at the centre of the underpass some time in March, on a date yet to be determined. The exhibition will be a combination of colour and monochrome prints. The colour images I already have and just need to be printed. The monochrome prints will be entirely new, and a mixture of images taken on a medium format camera and a large format camera.
Here are several images from Wednesday. Using an old Mamiya 7 rangefinder camera with a 65mm f4 lens, i photographed some of the fabric of the underpass with monochrome film.
Regarding the exhibition, I am hoping to be able to create some portraits of the people passing through; what is urban space without people? And there maybe some disposable cameras for people to photograph themselves or their friends or family. All will be contributions towards my degree, but I would also hope there would be some community benefit too. Maybe a further exhibition somewhere.
I will provide more details as the study unfolds. I will be putting some posters around Lawrence Hill Roundabout and Easton in the days ahead. Here is a draft version of the poster.
If anyone has any ideas, or suggestions or offers of help please contact me by email geoff@lawrencehillphotography.art or even a developing Insta yet to be finessed.
In 2014 architectural consultants the Nudge Group were commisioned by the University of the West of England and the Quartet Community Foundation to prepare a report on the use of space at Lawrence Hill Roundabout.
The report begins :
The Lawrence Hill roundabout is situated in the most diverse area in Bristol, and connects a large cross section of different cultures, ethnicities, religions. and backgrounds. A higher than average proportion of young people also live in the area. The space has the potential to be a rich place of community exchange and youth aspiration due to the spatial link and interesting social context.
The scope of this report will outline proposals for interventions and props situated in the Lawrence Hill Roundabout that can activate and improve the perception, increase dwell time, and capitalise on this large underused public space.Currently the space is underused by residents. People rarely interact with each other as there is no reason to. Some severe incidents have occurred in the space, as well as antisocial behavior and crime in the vicinity and this has given it a negative perception. There have also been severe issues with flooding that are currently being resolved. This report examines the existing site conditions, and potential opportunities to activate the space with the aim of making it safer.
In an email a few days ago, lead architect and local resident Shankari Edgar confirmed to me that in the years between 2014 and 2026 no changes have been made.
The full report authored by Shankari Edgar and Patrick Fallon can be found here .
What is graffiti? What is street art? What does apparently random, meaningless words, symbols, colours and drawings mean?
I think for me markings on public walls became of interest during a visit to Andalucia in southern Spain pre 2008. The culture of Spain had long interested me and whilst searching for flamenco, gypsies and Spanish Civil War locations I came upon the ruins of a former army barracks in hills near Tarifa. The combination of the environment of a former Franco-ist barracks, the textural age-related deterioration of the buildings, the colours, the use of words, the illustrations sometimes scratched into the fabric of walls and the divided politics conveyed a sense of communication, or lingua franca, to me.
People who visually contributed in this spot, no matter how simply or elaborately, were telling me something they felt or believed, almost in code form, upon a canvas which guaranteed a sense of entropy, or change. I was drawn to this form of communication and that interest has remained with me wherever I travel, most comprehensively in Morocco.
A parallel interest developed in modern art, and I enjoyed the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat ( 1960-1988), a New York artist whose graffiti-like work was a form of communication, a commentary on the divided society in which he lived.
Basquiat’s paintings contrasted luxury and poverty, integration and segregation, and inner vs outside experience. He appropriated poetry, drawing, and painting, marrying word and image, abstraction, figuration, historical knowledge, and modern criticism.
Basquiat’s artwork employed social criticism as a tool for reflection and connecting with his experiences in the Black community of his period, as well as assaults on power structures and racist institutions.
Basquiat’s work was a form of codified political and social communication, challenging institutional cultural prejudices and stereotypes as I believe most graffiti and street art to be.
It is also the most democratised of communication, on public spaces free to view for all who pass.
Graffiti also has links with Dadaism and Surrealism
I first encountered the underpass at Lawrence Hill Roundabout on January 7th 2025 as I was making my way to the M32 Skateboard Park. It resembled some form of ampitheatre, or colosseum, with 4 main entrances, each of which safely guided people under the busy roundabout and onwards to different parts of Bristol.
The colour was the first thing that i noticed and having long photographed street art in many countries, including in various parts of Bristol, I stopped to make photographs. Whilst doing this, I also found possessions and objects which had been discarded as well as a plethora of signs advertising events, many of which had long occured.
Its walls and surfaces resembled a palimpsest, a series of layers which were partially transparent revealing earlier layers; a simple form of travelling back through time.
Images taken on 7th January 2025.
In the months afterwards I travelled to Morocco and Western Sahara, where I developed shingles and subsequently post herpetic neuralgia, which was extremely debilitating. I next returned to Lawrence Hill roundabout on 10th June 2025, when i took further images.
Images taken on 10th June 2025
My third visit was 11th September 2025. when I again focussed on the street art and the found objects. I became increasingly aware of the diversity of ethnicity and made efforts to chat with people I met walking through the underpass. This was to continue to interest me as I undertook more formal research into the roundabout and its locality.
Images taken on 11th September 2025.
So I have a collection of images of graffiti, deteriorating posters and found objects and had began to meet with and chat with local people who used the underpass; what does this mean, and what next?