Opening: Thursday 26 April 6.30pm

Fascinated with her homeland, photographer Dana Popa returns to Romania and looks at the generation born here just before or after the fall of the Communist regime. After the New Man is an intimate portrayal of a society that is slowly healing, of  youth and fleeting memories of a bygone era that still permeates the selves and the landscapes. The exhibition is organised in association with Foto8 Gallery.

Traces of Popa’s own childhood pervade not only through the blocks of flats and through the cars from another era, but in the mindsets of old and young. This legacy of the recent past and the ubiquitous Western-inspired ideals of lifestyle and consumerism construct a portrait of a displaced generation, struggling to reconcile their place in history.

The exhibition brings together Popa’s own socially engaged work with her old family photographs and remnants from the past.

Dana Popa (b. 1977) studied a Masters degree in Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication. Her work focuses on contemporary social issues with a particular emphasis on human rights. ‘Not Natasha’ was Popa’s first major body of work, which looked at the effects of sex trafficking on girls and families in The Republic of Moldova who had firsthand experience of it. The project has been exhibited around the UK, Europe and US and was published as a book (Autograph ABP, 2009). Popa is based in London.

Related Events

Artist’s talk with Dana Popa - Tuesday 1 May, 6.30pm.

The exhibition continues until 26 May 2012. Opening hours: Mon - Fri 10am - 6pm; Sat 11am - 4pm.

Deco Heart, the musical pairing featuring Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri, will perform three exclusive UK shows ahead of the autumn release of their self-titled album. Working at the edge of jazz, contemporary classical and downtown NY improve, the duo present a set of jazz musings and downtown skronk, a joyously upbeat affair.

For their show at London’s Vortex, the first of their three-night UK run, one of the giants of improvised music, special guest saxophonist Evan Parker, will join Deco Heart.  In Derby, the show will feature the ever-inventive vibraphone player Corey Mwamba.

Born in Transylvania, Lucian Ban now resides in New York, and is a fully fledged member of the downtown scene and at the forefront of contemporary modern jazz.  Described as "one of the most gifted pianists to move to New York in the past decade" and cited as “playing with a sensibility and fluency that recalls Vladimir Horowitz as much as McCoy Tyner”, Ban has twice been nominated as Best European Jazz Musician in the prestigious Hans Koller Awards. 

Yet it is through his Enescu Re-Imagined project that Ban made his mark in the UK, and first collaborated with Mat Maneri uncovering a unique musical rapport.  The show was performed at London Jazz Festival, with the support of the Romanian Cultural Institute in London. It was, suggested the Guardian, “a rare combination of uninhibited but coherent solo and collective improv, shrewd arrangement and dazzling thematic writing”.  

Classically trained, Mat Maneri has been charged with the accolade of “changing the way the jazz world listens to violin and viola”.  The freewheeling scope of his musical imagination has led Maneri to become the go-to guy from artists such as paul Bley, Cecil Taylor and Matthew Shipp, John Medeski, Michael Formanek, Tim Berne as well as  leading several of his own critically acclaimed ensembles.

Programme:

Thu May 17, Vortex Jazz Club, 8.30pm
11 Gillett Street, London, N16. 
Tickets:  £12  |  020 7254 4097  |  www.vortexjazz.co.uk | Book online 
Photo of Evan Parker by Benjamin Amure

Presented in partnership with Jazz North East

Fri May 18, Literary & Philosophical Library, 8pm
23 Westgate Road, Newcastle NE1 1SE 
Tickets:  £ 10 ( £ 8 concessions)   |  0191 232 0192 | Book online

Presented in partnership with Derby Jazz
Sat May 19^th, Voicebox Arts Centre, 6:30pm
Forman Street, Derby DE1 1JQ
Tickets: www.voiceboxuk.com