Nikki Price is a final year PhD, Photographer, Researcher and Creative Tutor. We invited her to write about her research and new exhibition.

After Makers

My creative journey as a photographer after the deaths of my Nan, Grandad, and Dad is at the core of my PhD research. I also connected to other creative practices such as journalling, drawing, and volunteering for a loss charity.

The photo above is of my Grandparents’ empty dining room, when, as a family, we were putting final preparations into their house, before leaving for the final time. The photo was originally taken in colour, but I changed it to black and white to contrast the light and dark and to be a metaphor for the emptiness of grief. I wrote in my journal:

We were cleaning and the smell of polish filled the air. I waited patiently for the moment the breeze caught the curtain and billowed giving movement in an otherwise still room. Nan’s chair is in the corner, still and silent, contrasting with the movement of the curtain. I sat on the floor, suddenly the room felt huge, empty, from what it had been; filled with memories. All that remained was the sound of the birds and the gentle wind.

Through my photography, photo elicitation, and using elements of creative non-fiction writing, I have held space for myself for reflection and connection to my family members and those times. In sharing my positionality within the research, I am giving ‘a public account of the self’ (Denscombe 2014).

Exploring with 14 participants how they, used, bought, and made things through a self-directed creative practice after-a-death, words such as trust and permission, strength and confidence were shared. In the time after-a-death we explore, reimagine, and reinvent our lives without the deceased. We have found opportunity, and connection, finished the unfinished, and been inspired to write, cook, volunteer, live in the positive, and consider our legacy all within the liminal space that our creative practice holds.

Encapsulating the evocative, my hope for the ‘After Makers’ exhibition, is that it ‘invites others to think and feel’ (Bochner & Ellis, 2014, Evocative Autoethnography).

About the exhibition

After Makers runs from Monday 24 March until Friday 25 April 2025.

The Gallery is open Monday – Friday, 10am – 4pm.

Related events

Private view: Friday 4 April, 3 – 5pm

Meet the artist workshops: Tuesday 8 & 22 April, 3 – 5pm