Back at the start of December, I ended an article about Paul Sng's superb documentary Tish with the hope that "its message resonates far beyond cinema auditoriums". Whether it has or will remains to be seen, but the film has certainly had a significant impact - and not only in terms of eliciting both rave reviews and anger at the way the odds remain stacked against marginalised working-class artists like Tish.
Established jointly by Modern Films and the British Culture Archive, the Documenting Your Community project explicitly sought to solicit submissions from anyone who felt inspired by the film and Tish's work to capture their immediate surroundings, regardless of their level of technical expertise or professionalism as a photographer. All that was required was an image posted on Instagram, accompanied by a short description and the hashtag #tishmurthafilm. The project officially closed at the end of January, and a selection of the best submissions have been posted on the British Culture Archive's site and in this Guardian article by Daniel Dylan Wray.
A devout believer in documenting the everyday world around her, Tish would, I'm sure, have been delighted to have been a catalyst for these images. Hopefully, seeing their pictures given greater visibility will convince some of the less self-confident participants in the project of the joy and inherent value in image making, and encourage them to consider following in her footsteps.
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