Shoot! follows a small pheasant and partridge shooting syndicate in Tow Law, County Durham on both work and shoot days. The shooting season (for pheasant) runs from October – February but creates a unique year round social space as members share the cost and labour of preparing for the season. During the closed season this involves ongoing woodland management and rearing game birds for release.
Participants are extremely diverse, and are drawn from rural and urban areas, young and old, men and women, and people from a diverse range of cultural, educational and occupational backgrounds. Whilst the final objective is to try one’s skill in actually shooting ‘sporting’ game birds, the process constructs a much larger social space for male and female sociability, for passing on traditions and sharing country lore and living practices.
Shoot! was first shown in Newcastle as part of the BlindboysWideyed collaboration in March 2010. It was then shown in Mumbai as part of the international BlowUp Bombay 2010 street exhibition.
Shoot! was selected for The Social: Encountering Photography, an international celebration of photography, organised by North East Photography Network and was shown in Durham Art Gallery, October 2013-January 2014
More recently, Shoot! was shown at Allenheads Contemporary Arts' gallery space, September 2015.
