Charlotte C Mortensson is a Swedish photographer based in London and Trench Town Jamaica. For almost two decades she has recorded the social housing in Trench Town, working closely with local historians and residents. The expanding project also encompasses a growing collection of friends and acquaintances made while documenting the architectural landscape. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across the UK, including the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield; The Lowry, Salford; Chester Photo Festival and a number of times at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh as well as the Royal Academy, London. In 2022/3 her work was shortlisted for the prestigious Bar Tour Photo Award and exhibited in Berlin and Warsaw.
About the work: 'I took the exhibited portrait of my friend, Wissy Wissy, last year, on 6th February. Jamaica was celebrating Bob Marley’s birthday, and we were in Bob’s tenement yard home in Trench Town, which is now part of Culture Yard, a museum. The bed is where Bob and Rita slept, Bob’s guitar is on the shelf behind. The yellow painting is of Haile Selassie as a young boy. Like so many Rastas, Wissy Wissy has been deeply inspired by Bob’s music and teachings and by Haile Selassie. A musician himself, he uses a number of names, but Wissy Wissy refers to his thick locks which he winds around his head, evoking an image of plant tendrils winding themselves around a tree.’
- the artist