Launching Thursday 9th July is the latest exhibition at DreamBagsJaguarShoes.
During many visits to London tourist hotspots, Charlie Kwai has become addicted to collecting a different kind of souvenir, a far cry from die-cast buses and Union Jack tea towels. Instead he is amassing an ever-growing collection of whimsical often tongue-in-cheek anthropological images.
There is an ambivalence to the collection of pictures that place his subjects in a somehow otherworldly, momentary and isolated catatonia.
Poignantly capturing the together-alone existence that prevails in any metropolis, while in-turn documenting human dissolution into an interchangeable field of brand messages… from Adidas hoodies to M&M’s gift bags.
These Decisive Moments celebrate the public’s eccentricities and foibles in this compelling, completely candid and un-staged collection of London personalities.
‘Parade’ is a procession of difference that definitively celebrates the human condition.
PV: 07:00pm, 9th July
DreamBagsJaguarShoes
32-36 Kingsland Road,
London,
E2 8DA
Charlie Kwai
Born in Bethnal Green in 1986, Charlie studied graphic design at Central Saint Martins. Charlie was drawn to Street photography since it channels an animalistic impulse to hunt in an unpredictable environment free of rules and expectation. For Charlie, it’s a discipline that offers a challenge to succeed in an art form that is under appreciated, difficult to master yet extremely rewarding.
“When you find that ‘gold’ it’s very satisfying, I think that’s why I do it. The streets are where I grew up, it’s what I know and where I feel most comfortable. London is where I develop, to better understand myself as a photographer — to challenge what I’m doing — taking pictures in a city I’ve lived all my life just makes that process easier.”
Charlie is drawn to interesting people, doing interesting things. These photographs are an embodiment of his sense of humour, of how he see people and of a fascination with how people live their lives.
JaguarShoes Collective
The original East London Arts collective, JSC create beautiful and unique exhibitions, events and publications.
The organisation was born out of much celebrated Shoreditch bar and exhibition space DreamBagsJaguarShoes in London in 2002. The unusual name of this founding business is derived from the two 1980s bag and shoe wholesaler signs that hang on the buildings original shop front.