From the Series 'Vacant' by Hannah Blackmore

Hannah Blackmore, a graduate from the BA Graphic & Media Design (GMD) course at LCC, has been awarded £1000 by leading design magazine, Creative Review (CR).

The bursary (courtesy of iStockphoto) will allow Hannah to pursue a personal project of her choice with the end result being featured on the CR website. She is also one of five outstanding graduates featured in the September issue of CR, touted by the magazine as having a “very bright future”.

Just months after graduating from LCC with a first class degree, we asked Hannah how she’s feeling on the back of this double-success. “It’s really exciting. I couldn’t have wanted a better start…”, she tells us.

From the series 'Vacant' by Hannah Blackmore

Hannah’s work first caught the eye of CR at her degree show – Round About – held at LCC in June. Graduating from the Interaction and Moving Image (IMI) pathway (part of GMD), her work is both photographic and film-based, documenting hidden communities and her interaction within those communities.

“A lot of my work is based in my hometown of Ramsgate, or on personal experience. I like to document places that go unnoticed, the places that we pass everyday, but seem to go unseen,” says Hannah.

'Behind Closed Doors' by Hannah Blackmore

In ‘Behind Closed Doors’, a series of photographs exhibited as part of her degree show at LCC, Hannah photographs her neighbours to create a set of newspapers to reveal a hidden community.

“I had been living in the same house for nearly two years, and had never met any of my neighbours before; I anticipated what they would look like. I decided to knock on their doors and ask to take their photograph, she says.”

'Behind Closed Doors' by Hannah Blackmore

To complement her photography her degree show also featured two documentaries, ‘Occupied’ and ‘The Unchanged’. The film ‘Occupied’ (featured below) originally came from taking pictures for ‘Vacant’ – book made up of images of abandoned shop fronts in Thanet. She explains: “I had passed this tool shop for the last 22 years, and have always thought it was abandoned. When going to photograph the abandoned shop, I saw a light on inside. It was occupied. The documentary expresses what I saw when I went inside; a time capsule.”

Hannah’s filmmaking talent is impressive given she’d not made a film before starting at LCC. “When I entered the course, I had never made a film before, so it really helped me to develop my portfolio,” she says. “The facilities are great, try and make the most of them. Also, we had so much equipment to use, you really notice it when its not there to use any more.”

After graduating, Hannah was part of the curation team for ‘The Space Between’, an exhibition by graduates on the IMI pathway in collaboration with Nexus Productions held in an abandoned office block in Canary Wharf. The exhibition was part of the Create 11 festival, a London 2012 initiative funded by the Arts Council to profile the extraordinary creative hub that is East London.

Hannah is keen to continue exhibiting her photography and creating documentary films and would love to work with a documentary team. So if you’re looking for a bright young talent, you needn’t look any further. You can view more of Hannah’s work on her website hannah-blackmore.com