Three brilliant Gloucester residents, three historic communities, three extraordinary portraits by renowned photographer Emilie Sandy.

Funded by Voices Gloucester, and facilitated by Dialect Writers CIC, ‘The Time Is Now’ is a unique community heritage project capturing for the historical record some of the volunteers and community workers in Gloucester, who have worked so hard to support others in recent years.

Though modern, these images draw on the traditions of Tudor portraiture, with an emphasis on luxury and symbolism - playing with our ideas about status and the value of care.

These are not just pictures of individuals - each image has been co-created with the subject and the Gloucestershire Archives. They aim to represent Gloucester’s unique history, catch an exciting moment in time right now, and represent the real people of this city for future generations.

In the historical record, portraits of the wealthy and landowning are easy to find. They showcase the power and influence of the subject, showing their success as being only about their skill as an individual. They conceal the work of those who laboured for them, often in poor conditions. They perpetuated the idea of a ‘natural’ social hierarchy, rooted in a particular version of history. These kinds of portraits still dominate our understanding of the past, and therefore our ideas about identity in the present.

Evidence of other histories; the stories of working class, migrant and marginalised communities can be found in folk tales, legends and ballads. But the real people – what they looked like, where and what was important to them, who their people were, how they liked to have fun - are largely absent from the visual historical record. This project aims to help change that.

Rich in symbolism and powerful imagery, full of our stories of place and identity, the portraits are also accompanied by a series of short films created by local film-maker Katherine Glynne-Jones.

This project seeks to show what happens when communities can tell their own story, in a way that will be visible for future generations. It shows what both our history and our future can look like, when we create it for ourselves.

FREE EXHIBITION:

Museum of Gloucester, Saturday October 25th 2025 - Sunday January 4th 2026