Kit Gunasekera, vicar of St James’s Church, Clapham, has tea with parishioners in a photo from Jim Grover’s exhibition Of Things Not Seen
Images, which document a year in the life of a priest, are being presented to the public at St James’s Church in Clapham.
Photographer Jim Grover, a local Clapham resident, decided to exhibit his work at the church which features in many of the photographs.
The pictures, which are on show from November 14 to 27, follow the life of Kit Gunasekera the vicar of St James’s, as he goes about his daily rounds.
For the project, Grover met up every day with Gunasekera, 43, and shadowed him as he prayed for the sick, met local residents and performed his duties in the diocese.
This is “the first time that the life of a priest has ever been recorded in this way,” said Grover. The project was completed in November 2015 and featured around 15,000 photographs, only 46 of which were chosen for exhibition.
The final selection put together by Katy Baron, an art advisor and curator “distil both Kit’s professional role as a priest, lynchpin of the church community, and his personal faith.”
Kit Gunaskera visits a sick member of the church in this photo by Jim Grover, who followed the vicar performing his parish duties for a year
When it was first exhibited at the gallery@oxo, on London’s South Bank in March 2016, it attracted 7,460 visitors, with many leaving messages that said the photographs were “beautiful”, “moving” and “inspiring”.
A guest book was left at St James’s Church, which had plenty of messages from the public. “The humanity and compassion is moving,” read Anna Dias’ message. “The use of black and white gives so much atmosphere to the pictures,” said Carl Woodhatch.
Previously having a successful international business career as a group strategy director for brands like Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff and Guinness, Grover has become increasingly focused on his photography over the past five years.
Grover reached public success with his documentary work after being recognised in the Sony World Photography Awards in both 2012 and 2014. He also won the 2015 Faith Through a Lens competition, judged by Don McCulin CBE, renowned photographer.
The success of his first exhibition at gallery@oxo was met with significant coverage with news reports from The Guardian, Evening Standard and BBC Radio London.
The Exhibition at St James’ Church Clapham
Along side his main work, Of Things Not Seen, Grover has produced an online piece titled Ministry: An Outsider’s Perspective. Each image in the series is accompanied by a personal perspective from Grover, based on “ministry, the role and what it takes to be successful.”
At the start of this project, he stated, “I had no appreciation of what ministry entailed.“ His outside perspective provides an exclusive look into a world, where many of us are unaware of its complexity
The next exhibition of Jim Grover’s Of Things Not Seen will be at Temple Church, London between February 25 to May 10. There will also be a showing at St Mary’s Cathedral during the Edinburgh Festival.
