The Magic Money Tree @ Atrium Space
12 September – 13 October 2024
Working collaboratively with groups and individuals from across England, documentary photographer Kirsty Mackay explores the impact of the cost-of-living crisis and what poverty looks like in the world’s 6th richest economy. Kirsty has worked closely with children, families and youth groups, primarily in Tipton, Bristol and the North-East of England, to help develop skills in photography, issuing them with compact film cameras and encouraging them to consider the power of their own voice and how to use it. Their narrative is one told collectively through photography, text and banners, collectively questioning – to what extent is poverty a political choice?
Kirsty Mackay is a Scottish documentary photographer, activist and filmmaker. Mackay’s research-led documentary practice highlights social issues surrounding gender, class and discrimination. She has an MA in Documentary photography from University of South Wales, Newport.
Her current book and exhibition project, The Magic Money Tree, is a collaborative document of the Cost-of-Living crisis. Working alongside and teaching photography to children and young people across the UK. The Magic Money Tree attaches individual’s experiences with the structural, political, and economic. It shows us what poverty looks like in the world’s 6th richest economy.
As a working-class artist Kirsty’s own experiences of domestic, sexual, physical and socio-economic violence allow her empathy, connection and insight into the stories of the people she photographs, whilst connecting these experiences with political and economic power structures and the British class system.
Image: Kirsty Mackay