People / Interviews
New exhibition faces up to the past
Hester Brodie is a former heroin addict turned photographer, who has used portraits of her friends and acquaintances to tell the story of her addiction, struggle to get clean and dreams for the future.
The exhibition is “about facing up to lost hopes and ambitions, and about the people whom I have gained and lost again since,” says Hester.
The Bristol-based photographer has spent 10 years documenting her life and is exhibiting her work in the communal corridor of her social housing flat – a place of huge significance to her.
is needed now More than ever
“I’m showing it in the corridor of my flat, as it’s built on the site of the abandoned warehouse I used to sit in and dream about a more positive future when I was a teenager, prior to becoming a heroin addict.
“Then by total coincidence I was given a social housing property years later, built on the site where the warehouse used to be.
“The exhibition consists of portraits and accompanying narrative, about both my history and that of the people I have met along my journey who also live in social housing/ have a history of addiction. It describes my own and other’s times of struggling to maintain a tenancy after being used to living no fixed abode.”
‘Ruth in my flat 2006’.
“Ruth is one of my oldest friends here in Bristol, yet I never had any photographs of her until we started hanging round again in 2005…Between us we have seen a lot of death.”
‘Evelyn’
I shot this around 2006/7, I remember her saying at the time that I shot it ‘Thankyou for showing me how I really am’ – because my work is not always very flattering.
‘Emma’
Emma was one of my closest friends. I threw the original of this photograph on top of her coffin when we buried her in April 2013. She was 36 when she died.
Hester’s exhibition is at Flat 10 Thomas Court, Three Queens Lane, Redcliffe BS1 6LE.
Open 9am – 9pm until Sunday August 7.