Creative Director
" I started out a very long time ago in what seems now to be a very different world. Once upon a time I was a journalist, a cathy and clare agony aunt and a music writer. Simultaneously. Seeing the Light / Rhubarb is my third incarnation after another life as a photographer. Now I'm working out how to be more personally creative in a world which has less and less time for living in the imagination."
Rhonda Wilson
Rhonda Wilson is the Creative Director of Rhubarb. She is often an unwilling hostage to the world of economics and company management but is liberated by working with a team who are wholly enthusiastic, clever, funny and much younger than she is.
Beginning life as a magazine journalist - simultaneously a music writer and agony auntie - she moved into graphics and photography for a second incarnation and was an established image maker in the 80's - making two highly successful campaigns around women and low pay / homelessness, which marked the influence of Thatcher's advertising culture and raised issues around representation of people already marginalised by their place in society. In 1989 she had a retrospective at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, and was a Director of Ten.8 photographic magazine - dedicated to issue based debate around the photographic image.
Her journalism and interest in the business of the image came together in1993 when she wrote Seeing the Light - the Photographers' Guide to Enterprise, a 62 page book whichgave advice to photographers wishing to underpin their creative practice with sound business sense.
Told by many that she was wasting her time, the book went on to sell out, as the culture of the individual and economics began to dominate the world of the artist. Seeing the Light, the company which hosts the Rhubarb Festival, began by one or two folio events in 1993 and has developed into a major force in the development of talented individuals wishing to have a future in the image world.
She has curated several shows, the most notable being in 2003 - The People and The City, with Brian Griffin and Tom Merillion, to underpin the bid for Birmingham to be Capital of Culture 2008. And Narrascape for New Art Gallery, Walsall, a show investigating the space between the urban and the wild, featuring Thomas Kellner, Frank Yamrus, Clare Smith, Deborah Jones, Barbara Downs and Sian Bonnell. Both with publications, designed with Ian Richards, from Heavy Object, her favourite book designer.
During the last few years, Wilson has reviewed at Fotofest - 2000/02/04/06/08; Photo-Lucida in Portland, Oregon; Fotofo in Bratislava; Positive Focus Review in New York; Contact - Toronto; Arte Photo - Brazilia; Photo Espagne - Madrid; Fotobild - Berlin; Photo Arte - Budapest.
This is often a source for interviews with photographers for a regular Wilson interview in Profifoto magazine, Germany, and for occasional shows at Rhubarb or for commission. She has also written for many magazines including Katalog, BJP, Portfolio, Ten.8, Creative Camera, Black and White, AN, and is now working on ideas for a second book on the business of the image.
Wilson is also interested in culture and cities, and in 2002 wrote the Eastside Creative Industries Vision, an insight into the potential for a district for cultural production in an area previously occupied by industrial users. This has been hailed as one of the most contemporary and forward thinking document written in Great Britain on the subject of city regeneration and leading to an idea for a creative monument which has now inspired a £44 million development of public and private partnership
Recently, Wilson was inspired to create a fictional character, who makes images and writes about her journeys with water. The show was opened at the Orange Studio by Ros Goddard, Poet Laureate for Birmingham 2004, who wrote poems for the photographs and added to the adventure between the written word and visual icon - investigating the space between the still and moving image, disposable and high end technologies and imagination and reality. She is now investigating the fascinating topic of 'creativity and the shifting demographic' - looking at the sudden explosion of artists over the age of 45 who are coming into the international art arena.