Recalling how the project evolved, Janire said: “By taking them to be photographed in Tredegar House, my aim was to make this historic building a part of the present.”
Among the images, there is a man in overalls sitting at a writing desk, a pair of women eating fruit at the dining table, and in another, a child flops across a four-poster bed while two women look dreamily away.
While a permanent portrait collection of the nobility is a key feature of Tredegar House, in terms of heritage, the current interpretation of the building is as much about how it functioned as a world defined by servants and masters; rank and hierarchy.
Whether the images in this temporary exhibition can be seen as a triumphant signifier of the changes wrought by circumstances on classes or ‘estates’, or whether they represent the interplay of two worlds, is for the visitor to decide.
When looking for somewhere to pursue her photography studies, Janire was immediately drawn to the Newport area: “Once I saw the university in its beautiful surroundings and strong local history, I knew this was the place,” she explained.
For this reason, although she has now graduated, she intends to continue hunting out the missing links between Newport’s history and culture. A new project with Newport-based photographers’ collective, Punctum, will explore a disused steelworks that once employed thousands of local people.
The project is called Ghosts in Armour. Clearly a theme is emerging in her work. People displaced and replaced through changing social and economic environments are as much a part history for Janire as portraits of nobles and the trappings of aristocratic wealth.
