I would use The Dover Prize to develop “The Quiet Centre,” a collaborative documentary project exploring identity and belonging in Darlington through intimate portraiture, handwritten testimonies, and atmospheric landscapes. The funding would enable me to create a significant body of work that advances my practice while fostering meaningful community engagement.
The bursary would support:
Artist Fee (£3,000): Compensating my time for research, development, and production across two years, allowing me to fully immerse myself in Darlington’s community.
Community Engagement (£2,500): Employing a part-time local coordinator to build relationships, identify participants, and ensure authentic representation. This role is crucial for creating trust and accessing diverse voices within the community.
Production Costs (£2,000): Covering medium format film, processing, and printing to maintain my established aesthetic while incorporating participants’ handwritten contributions—a new collaborative element in my practice.
Education & Outreach (£1,000): Delivering photography workshops for local students and providing a paid shadowing opportunity for an emerging artist, sharing skills while building lasting connections.
The remaining funds would cover travel, materials, and research, ensuring professional delivery while maximising community benefit.
This award represents a pivotal opportunity to expand my participatory methodology. While projects like “WATER” and “Ghost Notes” have explored collaborative approaches, “The Quiet Centre” would push further by integrating participants’ written words directly onto photographs—a technique I’ve admired but not yet incorporated into my practice.
The two-year timeframe allows for deep engagement, moving beyond surface documentation to reveal nuanced stories of place and belonging. This extended period would enable me to develop relationships, refine my collaborative approach, and create work that authentically represents Darlington’s community.
Through this project, I aim to create a model for documenting overlooked places that elevates everyday experiences while giving communities agency in their representation. The Dover Prize would provide the resources and framework to realise this ambition, marking a significant evolution in my artistic practice.
My work would enhance Darlington’s creative arts profile by positioning the town as an active creator of culture rather than merely a subject of documentation. Through “The Quiet Centre,” I would establish collaborative processes that empower local voices and create lasting creative infrastructure.
The project’s educational components—student workshops and the shadowing programme—would directly invest in Darlington’s creative future, providing practical skills and professional experience to emerging artists. By training local young people in documentary techniques, the project creates capacity for ongoing cultural documentation beyond my residency.
The participatory nature of my work transforms participants into co-creators, fostering a sense of ownership and pride in the artistic output. This approach challenges traditional hierarchies between artist and subject, demonstrating how contemporary art can be accessible and relevant to diverse communities.
The final exhibition and photobook would attract regional and national attention, showcasing Darlington as a place of cultural significance. By creating work that speaks both locally and universally, the project would position Darlington within broader conversations about identity, place, and community in contemporary Britain.
Most importantly, the project would leave a legacy of creative confidence, showing how artistic practice can emerge from and serve local communities, potentially inspiring future cultural initiatives in the area.
My practice explores identity, belonging, and human connection through social documentary and participatory art. Working primarily with medium format film, I combine traditional photography with collaborative methodologies, incorporating social research, questionnaires, and oral histories to create layered narratives about community and self. Recent projects include “Ghost Notes” (2025), commissioned by FORMAT International Photography Festival, which documents Derby’s enduring punk culture through portraits and oral histories. This work exemplifies my evolving approach, combining photography with sound documentation to preserve subcultural identity. “WATER” investigates the relationship between body and self through collaborative portraiture and participant research, incorporating questionnaires about interoception and somatic experience into the artistic process. “Songs of Love & Loss” (2023), supported by Arts Council England, explored romantic relationships through photography and motion. This solo exhibition at my London studio marked a significant development in my practice, expanding into moving image whilst maintaining my core themes of human connection. The project has been featured in Darklight Digital and Yellowzine. My work has been exhibited at Photo Oxford (2023), Royal Society of Photographers (2022), and nationwide through Portrait of Britain (2020, 2021). Recent group exhibitions include Decode Gallery, London (2024). I’m currently developing “Growing Together,” which weaves archival family photographs with contemporary documentation to explore displacement and cultural heritage. This project reflects my personal experience as an Angolan refugee and demonstrates how I transform intimate narratives into universal explorations of belonging. My practice is characterised by long-term engagement with communities, creating work that serves as both artistic expression and social documentation. Whether documenting Notting Hill Carnival’s cultural significance or exploring everyday rituals in “The Sweetness of Being Here,” I seek to elevate overlooked narratives while giving participants agency in their representation. This approach has evolved from early projects like “Londoner Stories” into increasingly sophisticated methodologies that blur boundaries between artist, subject, and collaborator.
I hold a BA in Sociology from the University of Roehampton (2011-2014). While not specifically a visual arts degree, this academic foundation has been fundamental to my artistic practice, providing theoretical frameworks for understanding social dynamics, community formation, and research methodologies that directly inform my participatory approach to photography.
My sociological training shapes how I engage with communities, develop research questions, and analyse visual culture. This academic background, combined with self-directed artistic development and professional experience, has created a unique interdisciplinary practice that bridges social research and visual arts.
My work has been recognised by arts institutions despite my non-traditional path into the field, demonstrating how my sociological perspective enriches my artistic practice.
Yes, I have received several significant grants and awards:
Arts Council England Project Grant (2023): Awarded for “Songs of Love & Loss,” enabling me to create a major body of work exploring romantic relationships through photography and motion. This grant supported production costs, venue hire, and the creation of my first solo exhibition in London.
Heritage Lottery Fund (via FORMAT Festival) (2025): Commissioned to create “Ghost Notes,” documenting Derby’s punk culture through photography and oral histories. This funding supported extensive community engagement and multi-media documentation.
Portrait of Britain Awards (2020, 2021): Won in consecutive years for work that was exhibited nationwide, providing significant exposure and recognition for my documentary practice.
Photo Oxford Runner Up (2023): Recognised for work exploring themes of identity and belonging, leading to exhibition opportunities.
Analog Sparks Gold Winner (2024): Awarded for excellence in analogue photography, acknowledging my commitment to medium format film.
Portrait of Humanity Shortlist (2024): International recognition for work capturing human experience and connection.
These grants and awards have been crucial in developing my practice, enabling me to undertake ambitious projects, experiment with new methodologies, and reach wider audiences. They demonstrate growing institutional recognition of my work’s artistic and social value.
Yes, I founded and operate Studio Augusto Limited, through which I create self-initiated projects and manage both artistic and commercial work. This enterprise allows me to maintain creative autonomy while developing ambitious collaborative projects.
Through Studio Augusto, I’ve initiated several projects including my most recent project NEW FACES. New Faces was a 3-month mentoring programme in collaboration with Rionce Arts Club.I’ve also produced “WATER,” an ongoing participatory series that combines questionnaires with portraiture, and I’m currently working on “Growing Together,” which explores diaspora identity through archival and contemporary photography. These self-directed projects demonstrate my ability to conceptualise, fund, and execute complex artistic ventures.
I also organise community workshops and educational initiatives, including sessions during my DescoverArtists residency in Greece. These activities extend my practice beyond personal creation into community engagement and skills sharing.
The studio structure enables me to balance commercial work with artistic projects, using professional assignments to support experimental practice. This entrepreneurial approach has been essential in developing a sustainable artistic career while maintaining creative freedom.
Yes, I have received several public commissions:
FORMAT International Photography Festival (2025) – Commissioned to create “Ghost Notes,” documenting punk culture in Derby through Heritage Lottery funding. This major commission involved extensive community engagement and resulted in both exhibition and publication.
Arts Council England (2023) – While not technically a commission, I was awarded a major Project Grant for “Songs of Love & Loss,” which functioned as a public commission to create and present this significant body of work exploring romantic relationships.
Various charitable organisations – Commissioned to document community projects and create visual narratives for social impact campaigns.
These institutional commissions and funding awards demonstrate trust in my ability to deliver complex projects that balance artistic vision with community engagement. The FORMAT commission and Arts Council England support particularly showcase my capacity to work with public funding bodies, meet institutional requirements, and create work that serves both artistic and social purposes.
Yes, my work has received coverage in various publications:
It’s Nice That – Feature article by Jyni Ong (2022) highlighting my documentary practice and approach to storytelling
Darklight Digital – Coverage of “Songs of Love & Loss” (2023), discussing the project’s exploration of romantic relationships
Yellowzine – Feature on “Songs of Love & Loss” (2023), examining the exhibition’s themes and artistic approach
British Journal of Photography – Coverage through Portrait of Britain awards (2020, 2021)
Various online platforms have featured my work, including international photography blogs and cultural websites
This press coverage has helped establish my reputation within the photography community and brought attention to my participatory approach to documentary practice. The features have particularly highlighted my ability to combine social research methodologies with artistic expression.
Yes, I participated in the DescoverArtists residency in Hydra, Greece (2022). This three-week programme provided crucial space for reflection and development of my practice, resulting in the project “Ode to Idra.”
During the residency, I:
Created new work responding to the island’s environment and community
Led workshops for local participants
Developed collaborative approaches that now inform my practice
Connected with international artists and curators
I am currently in the interview stage for the “Culturally Mindful” programme, part of Wandsworth’s London Borough of Culture 2025. This selective programme is designed for global majority artists to develop creative health practices through paid training and residencies. If successful, this would provide an opportunity to combine my documentary practice with creative health methodologies, further expanding my experience in socially engaged art.
These residency experiences demonstrate my adaptability and capacity to create impactful work in unfamiliar environments, skills directly relevant to the Dover Prize opportunity.
Email: francis@studioaugusto.com
Address: 27 Enterprise Way, Apartment 704, London, Greater London, SW18 1FZ§, GB
Local Authority: Wandsworrth
