The International Portrait Gallery is a pop-up photography studio and project space, through which I offer photographic portraits to the local community, free of charge and obligation. I do this in order to recreate the space of creative exchange that is unique to the local photography studio, which have become few and far between. Through the space I also collect stories, anecdotes and memories related to the area and hope to establish long term collaborative relationships with willing individuals. These individuals will become the subjects of my photography-based work, which is concerned with globalisation and it's effects on community and identity. My belief is that the International Portrait Gallery can become a site of dialogue between the SE1/SE17 community and myself, and that this is the ideal context for the production of a challenging and compelling work, containing a multiplicity of voices, with people participating in their representation.
So if you live/work in the area, or consider yourself a part of the community in any way, I would love to take your picture and have a chat. You are not obliged to let me use this picture and will receive a digital copy for free.

Emile Ebrahim Kelly (b.1986) is photographer and artist from, and based in, London. He works to produce images that are rooted in a documentary urge whilst playing with the photograph's status as an abstraction/fabrication. He is particularly interested in producing socially engaged work that explores notions and realities of community and identity in a post-colonial, globalised world, using collaboration with subjects as a productive artistic strategy.