Speaking this month we have:

• Marion Bull – Upper Mesopotamia and Kurdistan

Marion is a London-based travel writer and photographer, published in the Sunday Times, Guardian, Independent, Mail on Sunday, Observer, magazines and books.

She has a special interest in early civilisation, Neolithic art and artefacts, and is known for solo expeditions to deserts, especially in Africa and the Middle East.

She has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Excess Baggage and in a TV documentary. Highlights of her career so far include meeting Nelson Mandela, being the first UK journalist to record and exhibit rock painting images from the Tassili N’Ajjer, Algeria, and the first to photograph the remote off-limits Northern Skeleton Coast of Namibia, which became a touring exhibition.

She is currently writing a book about her journeys.

• John Kenny – Sub Saharan Journeys: 6 years of visiting Africa’s remotest communities

John Kenny is a fine art photographer living in London.

Since 2006 his focus has been on Sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting the pivotal role that traditional communities play in humanity’s survival in places where the earth’s resources are minimal. His work emphasizes the positive role that Africa and Africans play in the 21st Century and also highlights the threats to traditional ways of life today.

John’s work has been exhibited worldwide through international art shows and has been featured in The Times of London, The Telegraph, and the international art and photography press. John actively supports organisations that work within traditional African communities and has been a guest on BBC Radio and at the London International Documentary Festival. Last year John donated works in support of Survival international, Concern Worldwide, and his work was auctioned at Sotheby’s New York in aid of ‘Art for Africa’.

John has been visiting tribes across the African continent for six years as part of an ongoing photography project and will be talking through his will be accompanied by a slideshow featuring some of the remarkable people that he has met on this journey, and why these people and their communities matter to him in the 21st Century.

To get an idea of John’s work you can see his Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnkennyphoto

London branch meetings are held at The Church of Scotland, Crown Court, behind the Fortune Theatre in Covent Garden at 2.30pm the first Saturday of each month, unless there is a UK public holiday that weekend.

There is no London meeting in August, but we start afresh each September.