Amanda Jackson

TO BUILD A HOME


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Amanda is a freelance photographer based in Malvern, Worcestershire, though she also spends much of her time living in a little retro caravan in Pembrokeshire. Her work has been in several publications including: The Guardian; The Observer; The Independent; In Clover Magazine, Marie Claire, and Photoworks Annual and One Planet Life.

Amanda’s photos depict life at the Lammas Eco Village in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It’s a site that the photographer visited twice in 2010 and was so enamoured by it that she moved next to them in early 2011, and ended up buying her own plot nearby. Since then she has been spending time between there and her primary home in Malvern.

The series To Build A Home takes an intimate peak into the lives of the residents who have chosen to turn their backs on a modern conventional lifestyle, choosing instead to live in harmony with nature, in a community made up of 9 smallholdings. This is evident in photos depicting homes at Lammas that have been moulded using materials sourced predominately from the land.

A serene timeless quality pervades throughout Amanda’s images, none more so than in YouTube Friday which, despite its obvious reference to the present day is reminiscent of a bygone age. But is this lifestyle really as idyllic as it seems? The image depicting garden fairies (Hwdl) suggest it all may be a charming dream but the adults living at Lammas know only too well the hard work that this lifestyle entails.

We are privileged to be let in through a tiny crack in the eco-doorway for a tender look at this community, who have fought tooth and nail over planning applications and building regulations to be able to live their low impact lives.

The series ‘To Build A Home’ was funded by The Arts Council of Wales and The National Library of Wales holds a selection of photographs from the series in their archives.

 

Print Sale: Simon and Jasmine Dale Rebuild Fund

On January 1st 2018, Simon and Jasmine Dale’s family home was destroyed by a fire. They are part of the Lammas Eco Village and the house was featured on Grand Designs and had taken them 4 years to build.

We want to help them rebuild their lives and we think you might too.

All profits from our print and postcard sales will go directly to the family to help them rebuild their lives in whatever way is right for them.

Friends Amanda Jackson and Heather Birnie are both photographers who have spent time photographing the Lammas Eco Village .

Amanda’s series To Build A Home is based on Lammas Eco Village and the surrounding community. She has exhibited the series at Oriel Mwldan (2014), Aberystwyth Arts Centre (2015) and Colwyn Bay (2017). The National Library of Wales holds 10 photos from the series in their archives. She has recently had an article published in In Clover Magazine (Issue 4) about her experience of living next to the eco village.

www.amandajaxn.co.uk

Heather’s series Eutopia focuses on Simon and Jasmine’s smallholding and considers the role of utopia in metamodernism.

‘An increasingly widespread disenchantment with modern ways of living, coupled with a perceived distance between individuals and their core values, today’s cultural mode sees a collective desire for change. A resurgence in hope and romanticism turns my attention to a vision of an achievable alternative, using pragmatic idealism to create a good place, a home’.

Eutopia has been exhibited at Blackall Studios, London (2015) and was selected by Richard Billingham for the Graduate 2015 show at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff.

www.heatherbirnie.com