Ameena Rojee

Things are slotting into place for the UWE photography graduate

Hard work pays off. For Ameena Rojee, today marks the final day of her exhibition ‘Hard Work’ at The Printspace. It’s the culmination of a project that saw the UWE graduate travel to China with on a mission to learn and document the process of learning Kung Fu.

The words “Kung Fu” approximately translate to “a skill attained through hard work”, which seemed appropriate for both Ameena’s instruction in Kung Fu and her photographic practice. The graduate trained at the Qufu School of Shaolin Kung Fu daily for a month, both photographing the practitioners and learning the art of Kung Fu. “I found that I was in the midst of a shift. A shift between the old world and the new world. My romantic notions of travelling to a mystical land of beauty and power were cut short when instead, I found a place half in the past and half in the future that echoed more about home than I had expected to find.”

The project turned heads and, perhaps most notably was picked up by Brown Owl Press in the form of a 90 page photo book, released last week. Offset printed in full colour and featuring a foreword by the great Benjamin Zephaniah it is a beautifully crafted, definitive record of a quite compelling insight into a world of discipline, spirituality, skill and graft.

It’s a brilliant, immersive project and we recommend picking a limited edition copy of the book up while you can. Here are a few of our favourite images from the series.

ameenarojee.co.uk