For this blogpost, we spoke to Esther May Campbell, founder of Kitchen Table Photo Club and lead artist on MAYK’s upcoming live art and photo show 378,432,000,000 Seconds of Exposure alongside Chiz Williams.

How do young people in Bristol access nature? Earlier this year, artist Esther May Campbell and the Kitchen Table Photo Club undertook a residency as part of Mayfest called Anything Moving and What Remains, roaming Nightingale Valley in St Anne’s to explore themes of nature, magic, and play. The residency highlighted an important tension: how do we ensure that young people growing up in urban areas have the chance to experience untamed, wild spaces? And what happens to that connection as we move closer to the city centre?

Wrap your eyes around this new trailer from Kitchen Table Photo Club in anticipation of their exhibition at St Anne’s House this December.

What happens when the city itself seems to be undergoing a transformation? Over the next 10 years, large parts of Bristol will change beyond recognition. Loved spaces will disappear, new streets will appear, new ways of moving around the city, and new ways of living, working and playing.

Cast your mind back to the cold, dark days of December. We filled an empty shop in Redcliffe with wonderful sounds, words and images that explored how Bristol is changing as part of a new residency called Confluence.

Verity Standen is an award-winning artist, composer and choir leader who works with trained and non-professional singers to create rich, beautiful soundscapes and performances. She likes to play with vocal music in ways that ask us to listen differently, gathering people together to sing, and exploring different ways that people can experience music.

Travis is an award-winning writer, performer and theatre maker. Born in Bristol and recently relocating back to the city, Alabanza is fascinated by how the city is changing and about the things that will never change. Whether creating theatre, live art, or poetry, the performer’s work shows those with marginalised identities deserve to be both seen and heard.

Ryan is a Bristol-based portrait and documentary photographer working with still and moving imagery. The foundation of his practice stems from an inherent connection to space and urban planning. He is interested in social structure, psychogeography, spatial practices and the multifaceted use of space. Particularly, Convery-Moroney is interested in understanding how we observe, feel, act and behave accordingly to space due to our individual or collective knowledge, intentions and interests.

Asmaa is a multidisciplinary artist, writer and filmmaker based in Bristol. Their solo exhibition Except this time nothing returns from the ashes, made in collaboration with Gouled Ahmed, was presented at Spike Island, Bristol in 2023.

My name is Theoni, I am a MA Curating student at UWE with a placement at MAYK and I have a strong interest in curating community related projects within a sociopolitical context. I am also a migrant who moved from Athens to the post-Brexit Bristol two years ago. This blog post is about my research and involvement in Confluence. It is also a blog post about common grounds, connections, and the pursuit of a sense of belonging in an ever-changing city.

Bristol is a city which seems to be in a perpetual state of physical reinvention. Cranes dominate the skyline. We are constantly being asked to reassess our relationship to the topography of the city as new buildings spring up.

This autumn, MAYK is launching a new residency that explores how Bristol's city centre is changing. We have invited four artists to create imaginative, personal responses to the idea of a changing city. Confluence offers unique and fresh perspectives to the discourse around the future of the centre of Bristol, and offers opportunities for audiences to contribute their experiences and thoughts.