Peter Dibdin Photography

This time, I thought rather than hearing from me, I’d share a blog that my friend Tessa Simpson from brilliant design agency, O Street, has written about my collaboration with them on Kenema and a recent exhibition that we hosted in London. I’ve enjoyed working with O Street on many a client project and this is a personal project that is particularly close to my heart, so it was great that they wanted to get involved.

Kenema – Portrait of a School
13.03.17

Our long time pal and talented photographer Pete Dibdin recently held an exhibition down in London in aid of Swawou School Foundation.

The foundation supports Swawou Layout Community Primary School for Girls and is based in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Set up in 2009 the foundation offers a free primary education to girls from disadvantaged homes. Pete has spent the last two years visiting Kenema and working on the project, documenting the community involved in the build in a series of truly arresting portraits.

Hawa Soyoh

The sitters include a wide variety of characters from the community in Kenema; from hands-on-hips students striking a pose to sweaty construction workers, shovels in hand.

The school has made a huge difference to the community and we were delighted to help Pete create fundraising items for the exhibition. We took a selection of his lovely prints and created sets of postcards available for sale on the evening of the event—miniature versions of the large-scale, limited edition work that was displayed on the walls.

The exhibition itself was a huge success, with three cases of red wine and two cases of white wine consumed and twelve boxes of mince pies mysteriously missing.

More important than the alcohol consumption was the result of 9 large prints being sold, alongside 1 A2 print, 5 A4 prints and many a postcard sold, priced at £12 each. This means a fantastic total of £7,855 has been raised, which will go directly to the running of the school.

You can get involved with the foundation by clicking here, where you can contribute towards sponsoring education for the young girls of Sierra Leone.

A massive thanks also goes to everyone at Law Business Research for sponsoring the school, the exhibition and providing a venue to showcase Pete’s work. The prints will remain up at Law Business Research to celebrate their continuous funding of the school.

– Tessa