Battery set to host torchlit photo exhibition

Gil Mualem-Doron's work forms part of the torchlit exhibition at the battery

A torchlit photography exhibition exploring themes of otherness, the marginal and the overlooked is set to open at a historic military site.

Portland's High Angle Battery is the setting for the exhibition, which has been co-curated by b-side, a Dorset-based arts organisation.

An LGBT+ side group b-side helped set up and British-Israeli artist Gil Mualem-Doron have also helped to coordinate it and they appealed for submissions from around the world.

The exhibition, which showcases work from 21 international artists, opens on Thursday and runs until Sunday.

Rocca Holly-Nambi from b-side has helped coordinate this week's exhibition

"If you can't see people's lives you'll never know they existed but you'll also never recognise the positive contribution that difference makes to our lives," Rocca Holly-Nambi, from b-side, said.

"Being seen is to know you're alive. To see yourself in artworks – and they might not be your art – reflected back at you makes you know that you matter and that you exist."

The exhibits are contained within the battery's tunnels.

The site was built in the 1890s to help defend Portland Harbour against invasion.

It was built so shells could be fired onto attacking ships below it, but advancements in ship speed meant it was obsolete after a decade.

The art exhibition is the latest in a series of events held at the battery, with an opera event set to be held there next month.

The battery, where the exhibition will be held, was built in the 1890s but was obsolete within a decade