Johny Pitts: Home is Not a Place - Exhibition Trailer

In 2021, photographer and writer, Johny Pitts, and poet Roger Robinson travelled around the British coast in search of an answer to the question 'what is Black Britain?' Their collaboration became Home is Not a Place - exhibiting at The Photographers’ Gallery from Friday 23 June to 24 September 2023.

Travelling in a red Mini Cooper, Pitts and Robinson’s circumnavigation encompassed the coastal, urban, rural and suburban, via the places in-between. Following the coast clockwise, together they set out to document and respond to the many manifestations of Black British culture, and to present an alternative to official and media narratives.

In the exhibition and accompanying book Robinson's poetry sits alongside Pitts' images from around the country. The show's title comes from a quote by American writer James Baldwin ‘perhaps home is not a place, but simply an irrevocable condition’.

Pitts invites you to come in, take a seat and feel right at home - to experience what home means to him - whether you’re flicking through family photo albums, chatting and sharing ideas, or listening to pirate radio playlists from Pitts’ 1980s youth.

Pitts was supported by the inaugural Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship in 2021. The Ampersand/Photoworks Fellowship is a collaboration between The Ampersand Foundation and Photoworks, supported by Arts Council England.

Home is Not a Place is a touring exhibition. It has been on show in Pitts’ hometown of Sheffield at the Graves Gallery, and at the Stills Gallery in Edinburgh. The book Home is Not a Place, which combines Pitts' photographs with poems by Roger Robinson, was published by Harper Collins UK in September 2022.