Mia Huckfield: ‘Small Acts of Resistance’ – Multistory x BCU Live Brief 2023

‘Small Acts of Resistance’ was a live brief produced by Multistory for BCU students to respond to. The brief invited students to explore how different communities in Sandwell and the wider Black Country are resisting the destruction of biodiverse landscapes, taking rewilding, growing and ‘greening’ into their own hands, and making it accessible to everyone.

“Mia Huckfield photographs her local community through the gardening volunteers at Oak House. Oak House was a main place of interest for Mia and she emailed them with her intentions with this project and how she could go about photographing this in such a short period of time before Christmas. Mia not only wanted to show off the beauties of the house centred in her project but felt the gardeners needed to become the main focus of her project to gain praise for all their hard work, selflessness and determination. She also wanted to incorporate the gardeners in another way other than just modelling so decided to collect interviews from everyone to add that personal touch.

Oak House is a beautiful piece of Black Country history that is unfortunately being forgotten about by the local community. She wanted to add its personality to her finished work by incorporating their voices over her photos in a documentary style video slideshow. She is also planning to create an exhibition, with QR codes created in Soundcloud of their recorded interviews and placed next to their photos. This exhibition will hopefully be hosted at Oak House itself when it reopens.

Mia is hoping to bring back the spark and energy found in Oak House that she uncovered when she was a child. The gardening group has been lost in the shadows and she would like this project to bring publicity and well-deserved attention to the people that keep the rich history of the West Midlands alive.”

Scroll down to view the gallery.

Artist Biography

Mia Huckfield is a portrait and documentary photographer based in the West Midlands. She is currently studying photography at Birmingham City University where she is expanding her photography knowledge and skills and experimenting in different parts of the photography field. She is a well rounded photographer with plenty of experience behind her to deliver the best possible outcome for whatever project or event you throw her way.

Find Mia on Instagram.