Artist Statement
Joanne Coates is a working-class disabled visual artist who lives and works across the North of England. Her work explores rurality, hidden histories and inequalities relating to low income through photography, installations, film, and audio. Coates uses photography to question the concepts of power, identity, wealth, and poverty, by exploring the social histories of land, gender, and class to narrate stories that have long been forgotten – or simply never told. Participation and working with communities are an important aspect of Coates’ work, over the years Coates has worked with various groups and organisations to investigate of class, rurality, and community cohesion. In 2022 she was announced the winner of the Jerwood/Photoworks award. Following this accolade, Coates collaborated with twelve women identifying as working-class to produce the timely exhibition, The Lie of the Land. Fusing traditional British documentary photography and intersections of socially engaged practice, Coates produced a series of portraits that represented the individual lived experience of the women, within the rural and agricultural setting.
