University of Bolton’s Roxana Allison wins Portrait of Britain award

A photographer who works at the University of Bolton is celebrating after winning the Portrait of Britain award for her images of Manchester’s community ‘super heroes’.

Photographer Roxana Allison, who is a Technical Services Officer in the University’s School of Arts and Creative Technologies, grew up in Mexico City and is now based in Longsight, Manchester.

She is one of 100 winners of the British Journal of Photography’s Portrait of Britain award, described as ‘an ode to the strength and unity that define the people of the United Kingdom’.

Her two winning images of the women who work hard to make her neighbourhood a better place – Nadia Siddiqui (above) from Women’s Voices, and Nasima Begum, Shireen Sobhani and Safina Islam (below) from the Manchester Bangladeshi Women’s Organisation (Ananna) – were exhibited on JCDecaux screens across the country throughout January, and featured in the Portrait of Britain Vol. 6 photobook by Bluecoat Press.

The portraits form part of Roxana’s photographic series Hope. Despair. Miracles. which recognise the unseen, community-driven, positive projects happening across Longsight.

Her upcoming solo exhibition of the same title is now open at Waterside Gallery, Trafford.

A 2023 Trace Mentorship Programme alumnus, Roxana has previously collaborated with Impressions Gallery, Open Eye Gallery, the University of Bolton, Manchester Art Gallery, HOME, Manchester Metropolitan University, and The Travelling Heritage Bureau, amongst others.

She said: “A good portrait is one that sticks in your mind. You want to see it over and over again. It also evokes emotions that other portraits have never evoked, or don’t have the capacity to evoke in you.

“When I see these two portraits that were shortlisted and have now won Portrait of Britain, I have a feeling of awe – I could not believe that I had taken them.”

* The Portrait of Britain Vol. 6 photobook, published for the first time in collaboration with Bluecoat Press and sponsored by JCDecaux, is now available for pre-order with a 20 per cent discount on the Bluecoat Press website

See Roxana Allison’s solo exhibition, Hope. Despair. Miracles., at Waterside, 1 Waterside Plaza, Sale, Trafford, M33 7ZF, from 27 January until 31 March 2024 – FREE entry