Nathan McGill (b.2000) is an emerging visual artist, writer and curator based in the United Kingdom.McGill utilises the medium of photography to produce socially engaged projects that explore the interrelationship between people and place.
Analogue processes are favoured by the artist due to its transcendence of time and space whilst authentically connecting to the founders of photography. His photographic work highlights and is inspired by themes of identity politics, migration, urbanisation, anthropology, collaboration and memory.
McGill’s most recent body of work ‘The Photographer Is Me’ is a participatory arts photography project in collaboration with a community of West Midlands based asylum seekers. Catalysed by the desire to shift the power dynamic within photography, the project set out to host virtual workshops with intent to educate, inform and cultivate a safe space for participants to express their creativity. Via the combination of participant photographs, emulsion lifts, oral storytelling and artist portraits – the project has realised into a photo book co-authored by McGill and his participants.
Individuals seeking asylum in Britain often live on the margins of society after fleeing their native country, their life has been catapulted from one nation to another. Yet, even as they find comfort in Britain, they are met with the hostile environment imposed by the British government. It was always important to support the participants creative development through such a creative service that is often not provided to individuals seeking asylum.
