Journey with Johny Pitts through a series of audio recordings
Listen to photographer Johny Pitts talk about photographs in the exhibition, and Roger Robinson recite his poem.
Listen nowOur galleries are closed this week as we get ready for our new exhibitions opening on 9 October. The bookshop, cafe and print sales gallery are all open 10am-6pm Mon-Sat and 11am-6pm on Sunday.
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’ pared back approach…has a simplicity that’s refreshing and unpretentious.
- Aesthetica Magazine
My photographic practice involves trying to celebrate Black spaces, capture them while they’re still here and give them a home.
Johny Pitts
Listen to photographer Johny Pitts talk about photographs in the exhibition, and Roger Robinson recite his poem.
Listen nowBorn in Sheffield, Johny Pitts is a self-taught photographer, writer and broadcaster. The founder of the online journal Afropean.com and author of Afropean: Notes from Black Europe, Pitts spent more than a decade documenting the Black experience in Europe.
He currently presents Open Book for BBC Radio 4 and a forthcoming Afropean podcast funded by a grant from the National Geographic Society. Pitts has contributed words and images for The Guardian, The New Statesman, The New York Times, and Condé Nast Traveller. His first solo show was held at Foam in Amsterdam in 2020.
Johny Pitts and Roger Robinson: Home Is Not A Place, available now in the TPG shop. Signed copies available.
Buy nowPitts 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.
With thanks to all the people who took time to share their coastal experience with Johny Pitts.