Rebecca Lupton

Heart and Parcel created their 2nd cookbook From Home to Home in 2023 and was born out of the pandemic. Sixteen women, nine guest chefs and their supporters came together in their new cookbook, sharing recipes from their home kitchens. The book can be bought here.

These images were taken as part of Inside Out, a Manchester International Festival project . Over 200 Greater Mancunians were selected and invited by the MIF People’s Forum to have their portrait taken and displayed at Aviva Studios . Rebecca was one of the 4 photographers invited to take part in the project .

Once photographed, the images were blown up in black and white and they covered the floor of the Undercroft at the entrance to Aviva Studios, and the public were encouraged to get up close and personal with them.

Inside Out is a global art platform created by French artist JR. Over the past decade more than 500,000 people have taken part in an Inside Out project in over 152 countries and territories. Each project helps communities make a statement by displaying large-scale black and white portraits in public spaces.

Inside Out was part The Welcome, a larger project from MIF and Aviva Studios about celebrating belonging, pride and the people who make Manchester.

These images were taken as part of the #Righttowalk campaign, set up in Manchester in memory of Sarah Everard.

A commission by Brighter Sound. With composer, Eve Harrison, and members of an over 60s group at North Manchester Library we created an immersive piece using photographs and storytelling, by re-visiting their memories of growing up in the local area. The piece was performed in an interactive exhibition piece at Manchester Library.

Ongoing project exploring initiatives in and around Greater Manchester, linked to improving the environment and conservation.

Commissioned back in 2019, Rebecca took photos for the first Heart and Parcel Cookbook. Heart and Parcel are a charitable organisation who run language courses for women in Greater Manchester. Find out more about Heart and parcel here.

The following images were collected over a few months, and showed all of the important elements that went into creating the restaurant - the people, the produce and the suppliers. The images were exhibited during the celebrations of ‘The Creameries’ 3rd birthday.

From the particpatory project, Lockdown Mothers lead by Rebecca Lupton during lockdown with mothers from all over the world. Click the link above to see the archive of work collected.

“As an experience the whole pandemic has been intense. Too huge to process.

We’ve all been very aware since the beginning of it’s magnitude and how it will affect our lives in some marked way from now on. We’ve discussed it on social media, picked it apart during our allotted social strolls, hashed it out on doorsteps whilst dropping presents to friends experiencing (another) lockdown birthday. It still feels too huge, too foreign, too life-altering to let go of these conversations yet.

One thing that has helped our family has been simplifying life, and slowing down. The small things have grounded us, focussing on the day to day, finding comfort in routine and indulging in tasks that eat up time in an almost meditative way. Time has never gone so fast and at the same time so slow.

At the very start of lockdown in March 2020 when life was strange, the supermarket shelves were empty and going to the shops induced panic. As many others did, we decided to get a regular veg box and started a journey that we’ve already failed at previously a handful of times. The middle class dream of getting a veg box is not all that its cracked up to be – it requires effort and commitment – and previously we’d given up on the month that brought us just radishes and parsley.

This time, under a new regime and with the added token that we’ve become vegetarians, we found that the commitment suited our life: it took us away from the shops, gave us a new need to be inventive with our cooking, involved a little walk to go and pick it up, and it all came straight from the ground so the ritual of cleaning everything and lining it up on the draining board felt cathartic.

Almost a year on, we’re still getting the veg box and when it arrives on a Tues we sort, clean and put away the veg and ask our knowledgable pals what they think our mystery item of the week is, then we roast it (what else can you do?) and declare it tastes a bit like a potato. In these extreme times I’m incredibly grateful for my veg box and the simple tasks that take us away from what’s going on in the world.”