University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate photography students showed off their work at the “Take My Word For It” photography exhibition, which concluded Sunday at the Arts Lofts Gallery. 

The exhibition gave gallery-goers an up-close look at the artists’ and their personal stories. 

Second year grad student Mariah Moneda displayed three pieces, all of which centered around her Filipino culture and connection with food. Her selected pieces, “Banana Leaves,” “Black Crappie” and “Turon and Banana Leaf,” gave her audience a glimpse into Filipino food traditions important to her. 

“Most of my work revolves around this idea of labor and community, and the way that we showed love in my family actually had a lot to do with the gestures of feeding each other,” Moneda told The Daily Cardinal. “Even when we were mad at each other or we were fighting, there was this idea that you still deserve a seat at the table. You still deserve sustenance. You deserve to live.” 

Through her work, Moneda visually explored her personal connection to food, the sustenance it provides and the decay that stems from wasted scraps. 

In “Turon and Banana Leaf,” Moneda photographed a staged still life of turon, a Filipino dessert, and a decaying banana leaf to spark conversation on where your meals come from and where they’re discarded. 

“You can’t have a meal without all the discard that comes with it, and I think that’s really indicative of how you can’t have all the good things without having all the bad things,” Moneda said. “I really love this visual motif of life and death and the juxtaposition between the two.”

Before starting graduate school at UW-Madison, much of Moneda’s work centered around domestic life and her family. When she moved away from her family in Arizona to Wisconsin, she struggled to figure out how to continue incorporating her culture and family traditions into photography. 

Moneda recalled the first time she stumbled across something that reminded her of home and how that experience inspired some of her more recent photography work. 

“I had this really surreal moment where I was in a Thai restaurant, and I had this very simple rice soup that was so reminiscent of one that I’ve had from my childhood,” she said. “I remember smelling it and then just bursting into tears in the middle of this Thai restaurant because I’m so far away from home and everything I know.”

Moneda said that moment sparked a realization: food is a connection to her roots as well as a way to “move forward and build a new community.” 

“Food is this invitation to bring people to a place they usually wouldn’t go,” Moneda said. “I talk a lot about how food is a tool I use to invite others into my space.” 

While Moneda said cooking helped her build a community in Wisconsin, she still grieves being away from her community back home. 

“For me, I think it’s also this gesture of grief and a send off because so much of what I’m able to share with my new community comes from my old community that I don’t have anymore, which is why I’m attempting to build a new one in the first place,” Moneda said. 

While Moneda’s work in the exhibition focused on her Filipino culture and relationship with food, second year graduate student Mark Almanza explored personal struggles that come with being a first-generation Mexican-American. 

“I’ve never felt Mexican enough or American enough, and so I’m living in this kind of middle space of identity,” Almaza told the Cardinal. 

In one of Almanza’s self portraits titled “El Perron y El Perrito,” Almaza captured himself sitting center-frame in a wooden chair holding a little stuffed dog. In the portrait, he donned a cowboy hat and a western belt buckle. 

Another self-portrait titled “El Águila Sobre un Nopal,” meaning “The Eagle on a Cactus,” features Almaza sitting shirtless in front of a tapestry of an eagle. The eagle tapestry serves as a symbolic representation of his Mexican heritage, calling on the nation’s flag which encapsulates an image of an eagle. 

Almaza said his photography allows him to take on issues with machismo, which he said is a strong sense of masculine pride embedded in Latino culture, and explore what it means to exist in a space between two cultures. 

“Self-portraiture really allows me to choose a lane and be the person that I might want to be,” Almaza said. 

Beyond Moneda and Almaza’s work, the exhibition as a whole served as a collection of deeply personal experiences and stories told visually through photography, living up to the exhibition’s name, “Take My Word For It.” 

The Platform by Virgil Reglioni, Otertinden, Norway

‘On 23 March 2023, Earth experienced the strongest geomagnetic storm in six years. Maria and I had significant doubts about this climb. We started the ascent of this 47-degree steep snowy slope during the blue hour, enduring -21C temperatures, while the northern lights lit up the southern sky. After overcoming the steepest part, Maria, ahead of me, spotted the tip of the cliff and exclaimed: “I see the cliff!” I’ll remember the adrenaline kick it gave me for a while. All I could think was: no way, we made it … now, how is the sky?’

Photograph: Virgil Reglioni/NLPOTY23

Think of a Wes Anderson film and the muted greys and browns of a rain-soaked day in London are not the first things that spring to mind. But the UK capital is about to host the first European exhibition of photographs inspired by the vibrant aesthetic of the American film director.

Accidentally Wes Anderson: The Exhibition, which opens in South Kensington, London, on 8 December, is the latest incarnation of a phenomenon that began on social media six years ago when self-confessed “nerd” and “Anderson fan-boy” Wally Koval started an Instagram account with the same name. He envisaged it as a personal “travel bucket list”, on which he’d share pictures of places he wanted to visit. However, it quickly snowballed to become an online community sharing photographs of locations that reflected the distinctive, colour-saturated look of films such as The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Royal Tenenbaums.

The Instagram account has 1.8 million followers and has spawned a coffee table book, a jigsaw and an international exhibition that has visited Tokyo, Seoul and now London. The “gallery experience” will showcase more than 200 images from around the world which, in their symmetry, framing, pastel hues and attention to whimsical detail, echo Anderson’s trademark style. The photographs will be displayed across seven rooms, with themes including transport, sport and hotels/motels, with interactive elements which will allow visitors to immerse themselves in the imagery. There will also be a room dedicated to London – not a city renowned for its sun-soaked colour palette. So which London landmarks have made the final cut?

“You’re going to find everything from iconic buildings like Buckingham Palace to the tube station or laundromat that you pass every day,” says Koval. The London Transport Museum, Covent Garden tube station and lesser-known architectural gems such as Woolwich town hall and the James Smith & Sons umbrella shop on New Oxford Street will claim wall space. There will also be several blank spaces with an invitation for people to submit their own photographs of the city, which could go on display from January.

Koval estimates that about 85% of the photographs on display have been taken by non-professional photographers using mobile phones, and that a huge part of the appeal of the AWA phenomenon is its “democratisation” of photography. Brooklyn-based Koval and his wife, Amanda, receive between 2,000 and 3,000 photographs each month via their website; and hundreds more are shared via direct messaging and hashtag. The couple looks at every single one: “It would be rude not to.”

So what are the ingredients of a perfect Accidentally Wes Anderson shot? “There are certain guidelines that we could give you, like symmetry or some sort of colour palette or a nostalgia of sorts. But it’s more a case of you know it when you see it,” says Koval. “It’s funny because people will say ‘That’s not Wes Anderson’ but it has evolved and it’s now as much about the unique story behind a building rather than a defined set of aesthetics.”

Koval is adamant that AWA is not about slavishly trying to replicate shots from the films: “It shouldn’t look like it came straight from [a Wes Anderson] film. It should look like it came from a film that has never been produced and may never be produced but it would be awesome if it was.”

Nor is it necessarily about travelling to exotic locations in search of the unusual: “If you allow yourself to see it, you can see it anywhere. It takes your daily walk or your commute and it’s almost a filter that you put over it that allows you to create this fantastical reality, without having to go anywhere.”

Accidentally Wes Anderson: The Exhibition is at 81-85 Old Brompton Road, London SW7. It runs from 8 December 2023 to 17 February 2024. Adult from £10.99, child from £6.99, tickets at feverup.com

There’s something incredibly alluring about a handsome building photographed at night, something that makes it memorable and alive and which encourages people to visit. However, since daytime architectural photography is the “norm,” buildings that become most striking at night-time are perhaps less likely to win the recognition they deserve. So, we decided to uncover architecture’s sleeper hits: the buildings around the world that people are most likely to photograph at night.

Buildworld analyzed the metadata on over 10 million photos on Flickr to identify the famous buildings with the highest percentage of pictures tagged “night.” They ranked 6,000 of the world’s most iconic buildings using the number of tagged photos per 1,000 photos of that building on the site. The findings are organized globally and within North America, Europe, the UK, and Asia, respectively.

More info: buildworld.co.uk

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Markthal, Netherlands

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

The Markthal in Rotterdam may not be the most photographed building in the world, but proportionally speaking, it is the most photographed at night by a significant stretch. Some 37% of the photos of this Dutch “market hall” are taken after dark. The market takes place under a huge, elongated arch, with shops, restaurants, and apartments rising around the upturned U. This means that a number of the windows remain illuminated until late.

But the real night-time star here is the interior arch. It is decorated with an illuminated mural across 11,000 square meters of aluminum “with a resolution comparable to a glossy magazine.”

Eiffel Tower, France

ADVERTISEMENT

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Mole Antonelliana, Italy

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Mole Antonelliana in Turin has led a multifaceted life. Designed as a synagogue, the structure was transferred to city ownership before construction was completed and became a monument and museum to the unification of Italy. Today, it is home to the National Museum of Cinema, and the cine-like projected lights on its dome make it a real attraction for late-night photographers. The building’s intricate brickwork, Alpine backdrop and panoramic views further boost Mole Antonelliana’s status as a must-see for photographers visiting the city.

Christiansborg Palace, Denmark

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Copenhagen Opera House, Denmark

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

ADVERTISEMENT

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Empire State Building, United States

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

The Empire State Building in New York City is the North American building we most love to photograph at night and by a considerable margin. While the tower’s Art Deco outline can’t help but recall the imagery of Batman – which demands a night-time aesthetic – it is a more upbeat detail that attracts photographers: the tower lights. Since 1976, the color of the lights has changed nightly to mark special dates and occasions, and in 2012 the lights were upgraded to “a state-of-the-art LED lighting system, capable of displaying more than 16 million colors.”

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

National Museum of Singapore, Singapore

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Nearly every top Asian building for night photography was built in this century or the last. The exception, among the top ten, is the National Museum of Singapore. The museum moved to its present premises, a “neo-classical building with a new modernist extension of glass and metal,” in 1887. The museum is a regular star of both the Light to Night Festival and Singapore Night Festival, with animated light shows dancing across the complex’s various anachronistic surfaces. More than a quarter of the photos taken here are captured at night.

Tokyo Tower, Japan

ADVERTISEMENT

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Shanghai World Financial Center, China

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Bank of China Tower, China

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Share

Image credits: Buildworld

Photography has always been something subliminal throughout Adrian Omar’s life. Like a typical proud mom, Omar’s mother was adamant about documenting his life through photos. And like a typical awkward kid, Omar was adamantly against the idea of being captured on camera.

Despite Omar’s juvenile cries of “I don’t want to take a picture, Mom!,” his mother would convince him to sit down, face the lens and smile. Now a professional photographer himself, Omar is grateful for the numerous family albums filled with memories and milestones. Photos of birthdays, Christmases and family gatherings each act as evidence of past lives lived.

“Taking photos and archiving — it’s what we can do as everyday people to prolong our own histories,” Omar says.

Years of watching his mom take, print and laminate her own photos made Omar a photographer-in-training from a young age, and later inspired him to pursue a degree in photography at the University of North Texas. As a student, Omar began using his camera to document himself and intimate aspects of his own life. Rather than freezing moments in time, these projects revealed identities not first seen at face value.

Early series like The Recalibration of One’s Self (The Relationship of Adrian and Ian) discuss Omar’s split identities between his everyday self and life as a sex worker. Another project, The Apprehension of Sentimentality: Returning Home and the Patterns You Find, chronicles Omar’s return to his childhood home, where he explored relationships to his queerness, growth and domestic life. Exploring these connections and conjunctions within his own life helped Omar learn more about himself and his self-perceptions. But rather than satisfy his artistic identity, these discoveries made him want to dig deeper.

“Discovering myself in the present was important to me, it was important to document my own stories and sources of self, but I knew there was more in archiving,” Omar says. “That’s what really kickstarted my current journey with that.”

Omar found himself once again returning to his childhood home to sift through the family albums he had cherished over the years. Within the endless laminated pages, he found connections and relationships within each separate photograph. Rather than just simple familial relations among the photographs’ subjects, Omar knew each captured moment had an even more significant relation to time and memory itself.

“I was once told that when we think about memories, the brain kind of treats it as like a file that gets deleted and then completely rewritten from scratch to form the idea that you now associate with it,” Omar says. “So truly every time you think about someone, it is getting farther and farther from that original point in time you had that memory. I think photography is that ripple in time, and having that be so contradictory to what we might remember ourselves is something really fascinating.”

Through his deep dive into the family archives, Omar discovered that decades of growth, loss and the spaces in between had all been tucked away in books, drawers and folders. Each photo and document itself marked a key point in a family member’s life — a large family gathering, the birth of a child, the death of a sibling. Omar did not know or remember every person or event captured in the photos, but found overlapping themes across his family’s history in each one.

Adrian Omar, photographed by Nate Bishara.  
Nate Bishara” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”> click to enlarge

Adrian Omar, photographed by Nate Bishara.

Nate Bishara

Today, Omar has taken the idea of overlapping the relations literally, and has visually translated it through photo overlays. The time spent scanning physical prints into digital copies and editing them in Photoshop gives Omar hours of one-on-one time with his art and the familial subjects it memorialized.

Since starting his Recapture series in early 2023, Omar has formatted retellings of family trips to the Mexican border, birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese and JC Penney’s studio family portraits.

This type of hands-on, archival art has shown Omar that there is more to learn not just about the functions of memory, but about one’s own relationship to whom and what we capture in memories.

“The process is about giving myself that room to breathe with photos, to get emotional with photos, to allow myself to get mad at people in photos, to be like, ‘Girl, what were we doing here?’ and not being able to do anything about it,” Omar says. “In the beginning, I would get so emotional after each round of photos. […] And now it’s like, ‘OK, we can deal with those things and we’re able to move in a more fluid and healthier way about it.”

Though not every project focuses on Omar himself, he has found it to be just as, if not more, impactful as his self-portraits series. By showcasing the stories of those closest to him, he feels he is best able to physically capture the persistence and importance of memory for those who may not know or remember its significance.

Despite her “not being one to dwell on things,” much of Omar’s archival work focuses on his mom, her life and her family. By working with her to obtain old photos and identify those in them, Omar feels they have both gained insight into the shared history of their family, as well as each other’s journeys.

“I’ve gotten to learn more about specific instances in my mom’s life and how they’ve impacted her, and I think she’s learned a bit about me from my art,” Omar says. “I think for both of us, we’ve seen how to take an object, a memory, and carry it on an almost personified level.”

As of now, Omar’s mom is one of the few in his family who has seen his family photo book-inspired pieces. As Omar is nearing his first round of scans and layouts, he is getting closer to sending out the first round of archives to his entire extended family — a milestone he has been working toward for months. He says the most rewarding part of the artistic process will be to send the photos to others in his family whom he has never been in contact with, but is still “definitely familiar with.”

“It’s almost like meeting a person and saying, ‘You know nothing about me, but I know everything about you,” Omar says. “A lot of that older generation in my family, I just admire them so much for everything they’ve done for me to be able to even create work like this. So if that’s something I can give them in return, hell yeah I want to do it.”

At the end of his digital archive series, Omar hopes to have everything digitized and accessible for his family. While the series’ process and themes obviously touch on a lot of personal subjects, Omar believes its impact and intent lay outside of his inner circle. Through the universal focus of familial identity and history, Omar aspires to display the power of memory. He says some are often apprehensive to do so, as family memories don’t often seem worthy of conversation. However, by starting the “mundane” conversation, Omar feels others are given the ability to be comfortable in their own experiences, backgrounds and growth.

“The mundane is worth discussing, is worth exploring, is worth doing,” Omar says. “Let’s bond everyone together under that universal care of giving a fuck about each other, about our families. […] We need those productive conversations about where we come from and how it makes us. It all starts with a sense of intimacy, of empathy that we find within ourselves and those we love.”

Omar looks back on childhood memories in a new photo series.  
Adrian Omar” class=”uk-display-block uk-position-relative uk-visible-toggle”> click to enlarge

Omar looks back on childhood memories in a new photo series.

Adrian Omar

‘From a Common Gesture’ at London’s 10 14 Gallery (8 December 2023 – 26 January 2024) brings together 11 contemporary photographers working at the forefront of their field. Also featured in the January 2024 issue of Wallpaper*, now on sale, the exhibition is curated by Wallpaper* and was realised together with the gallery and Nirvana CPH.

In their practice, these photographers share a moment of new direction, while gestures of material and scale bring the artworks into a site-specific visual conversation. Preview the photography here, and read on to hear from the team behind the show’s concept and curation: Wallpaper* Photography Editor Sophie Gladstone; freelance image director Holly Hay; art director and curator Jamie Allen Shaw of 10 14; and Nirvana CPH’s team.

‘From a Common Gesture’: 11 contemporary photographers at the forefront of their field

Xiaopeng Yuan 

Shanghai-based Xiaopeng Yuan tells us, ‘I enjoy it when my existence, or even the interference of a camera, is forgotten by the subjects I’m photographing. This kind of situation is rare and often of short duration. Every time I experience this, my heart beats faster. In this sense, hiding behind a camera is like hiding inside a stage curtain. The photos that are taken during this time always become my favourites.’ In a similar vein, Yuan’s 2019 book Campaign Child uses the context of commercial photoshoots to form surprising and surreal narratives through clever reframings of scenes, while questioning the global spread of Western capitalist motifs. In 2013, Yuan co-founded the creative studio Same Paper, focusing on art book publishing, which has lately worked with Roe Etheridge. Its focus is on introducing publishers, publications and artists’ projects to young Chinese audiences.

@xiaopeng–yuan

Sergiy Barchuk 

With an early childhood playing in the woods, naturally, Ukrainian-American photographer Sergiy Barchuk formed a strong creative relationship with nature. ‘As our climate is becoming increasingly less stable and predictable, I hope to echo the interconnectedness and precariousness of the balance between humans and the rest of nature in my work. I am not aiming to make big statements about the planet or how we arrived at this situation, but hope to remind the viewers to slow down and investigate our surroundings, because an unfinished watermelon rind or a cracked egg can be a source of beauty and tranquillity.’ Barchuk skillfully merges these inspirations across editorial and commercial works, having recently collaborated with the likes of Jacquemus, Balenciaga, Frieze.

@sergiybarchuk

Rebekka Deubner 

Paris-based Rebekka Deubner can be understood as a visual diarist, as she creates works that are self-aware of their context of contemporary photography. Images are generally presented in a serial form, giving the feeling of a temporal and narrative continuum. Here, she shares with us extracts from the series Strip, an active and abstract photographic response to the death of her mother a few years ago. Deubner utilises photograms and film stills as she works with clothing that belonged to her mother. Deubner’s other recent work includes documenting ongoing activism in France against water hoarding for intensive agriculture, and a diary responding to her body through the years. Whether focusing on the personal or the political, Deubner’s work carries a sense of intuitive care. 

@rebekkadeubner

Nicole Maria Winkler  

Born in Austria, and now based between Paris and Vienna, Nicole Maria Winkler brings together still and moving images. She builds her practice around image construction and staged photography, as well as psychoanalytic theories around the feminine experience and how such legacies have influenced art practices. Here in this excerpt of Labour Day, the profound moments of cells forming and a baby’s emergence convey boundless physicality and emphasise the integrality of a woman’s autonomy over her own body. Alongside collaborations with the likes of Hermès, Dior and Calvin Klein, Winkler’s images have featured in galleries and cultural institutions across Europe, including the MEP in Paris.  

@nicolemariawinkler

Ibrahim Azab

A curiosity about how we perceive and process information is central to artist and curator Ibrahim Azab’s practice. He moves between collage, sculpture and performance with the same vivid energy that his pieces radiate, exploring the boundaries of the photograph as an object. After recently publishing his book EV3RY(TH1NG’5)_MOV1NG: BUT_IM (STILL) H3RE, Azab tells us he’s ‘working towards a series of modular sculptures that fragment the capital landscape, allowing the observer to reformat space, images, and industrial material through their way of intervention and thinking’. Music production and DJing are also increasingly feeding into Azab’s conversations of cultural expression, and manipulation of material and space.

@ibby_azab_0.2

Dorothy Sing Zhang

Dorothy Sing Zhang has always been interested in the synthesised and constructed. Her images are hard to encapsulate; they appear suspended in enigmatic narratives that pause at unnerving moments. The evolution of Sing Zhang’s practice has involved filmmaking – which she studied in Denmark, taught by Jørgen Leth, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg – and fine art, studied at the Slade in London. Following Sing Zhang’s debut book Like Someone Alive, which depicted her subjects asleep, inadvertently photographing themselves, here she shares with us her latest work, The Architecture of You. She explains, ‘The “architecture” is the foreseeable, the fabrication. The “you” is the innocent, the unforeseeable.’

@dorothysingzhang

Alessandro Furchino Capria

Alessandro Furchino Capria describes his photographs as the outcome of two divergent magnetic forces, ‘an attraction towards the appearance of the subjects – animate or inanimate – and a dedication to a way of shooting in a relentless manner, that is at the same time also serene’. This approach was clear in his 2022 book Plastic Bags, a record of our contemporary relationship with consumption, typically unembellished and free from manipulation. Furchino Capria always surprises us with what he can bring his eye to, from seemingly banal tablescapes and domestic interventions to high fashion, as he recently did in a shoot for our September 2023 Style issue.

@alessandrofurchinocapria

Ben Millar Cole

We’ve long been drawn to Ben Millar Cole’s work for the questions he asks of art at its complex current juncture; whether AI presents boundless creative possibilities, ‘or a dark and unavoidable end-time for art as we know it’. In his latest book, One Horse Landed, Millar Cole creates a narrative of horse and rider, but these recognisable forms soon dissolve into a metamorphosis of symbols that are industrial, abstract, alien or unknown. The photographer tells us, ‘Human nature compels us to cling to the recognisable, and it is the tension that comes from this searching that spotlights my true subject: the complex choreography between the human imagination and machine interference.’

@benmillarcole

Guy Bolongaro 

With an infectious and palpable energy in both his work and presence, Guy Bolongaro has established a practice that can take many forms. Photography was initially a form of therapy for Crewe-born Bolongaro after he suffered burnout in his previous career as a social worker, yet the skills he gathered from that chapter of his life remain present in his work. Gravity Begins at Home, documenting the surreal cosmos of family life in lockdown, was published by Here Press in 2022, and cemented Bolongaro’s place in contemporary photography of family dynamics. He has recently expanded his practice to include unexpected portraits of animals, and there is a soon-to-be-released Gravity Begins at Home calendar.

@bandini3000

Florent Tanet

Silhouette and colour run throughout Florent Tanet’s work, as he takes his surrounding environment as material for surprising and playful compositions, describing his work as that of a ‘lazy person who does not make such effort and who creates with what is most common or already created’. He began his career as a trend designer and art director, so perhaps this has created a well-informed perspective from which to create in such a carefree and ready-made way. Alongside his editorial and commercial work, Tanet has exhibited his takes on daily life as a playground through galleries in Europe, China and the US.

@florenttanet

Caroline Tompkins

Five years of Caroline Tompkins’ photographic exploration of desire and fear became Bedfellow. Published in 2023 with Palm Studios, the book felt at the cusp of a movement in current discourse that was acknowledging the complexity and contradictions of pleasure and danger. Tompkins brings an intuitiveness towards dichotomies to all her works. She tells us, ‘I’m still interested in men. I still want to look at them and think about what they care about. I’m still interested in my mom and my grandmother and the Czech Republic. I want to be more intentional with my image-making – construct more, direct more, confuse more. I’m just getting started.’ 

@cahlinetompkins

Behind the scenes: the makers of the exhibition

Here we publish a conversation between those behind the concept and curation of ‘From a Common Gesture’: Wallpaper* photography editor Sophie Gladstone; freelance image director Holly Hay; art director and curator Jamie Allen Shaw of 10 14; and Nirvana CPH’s team which was behind the mixed-media printing.

Sophie Gladstone: A show this unusual was always going to be a complex creative endeavour, so I’d love to share with our Wallpaper* readers more about the process. 

Holly Hay: This project is the perfect case study for how I want to be working moving forward; asking questions rather than needing to resolve something, building on relationships with artists, and making a mark in the sand for what is happening in photography right now.

Nirvana CPH: On the face of it, producing unique solutions for this many different photographers has ‘challenge’ written all over it. Beneath that? A producer’s playground. One of our mantras is ‘graphics on ANY surface’. We’re a team of problem solvers who love design. This exhibition allowed us to think and play in ways often overlooked in more commercial settings. 

Jamie Allen Shaw: What’s been surprising is the level of trust from the artists. Having the freedom to draw lines between different ideas is one thing, but to double down on that and decide exactly how that new idea is placed in a room and on what material is another. 

SG: Freedom of this scale is such a rare treat when working with already existing artworks, isn’t it?

HH: I am so used to the confines of a print magazine, its size, the quality of the paper and print. Working with Nirvana CPH has been an absolute delight. They have brought their big ideas, creativity and access and applied it to how we can interact with a photograph and what form that can take. 

NCPH: The real challenge was stopping ourselves from going too big and wild with each piece, ensuring they kept their authenticity and identity.  

HH: You don’t often get the opportunity for such blue-sky thinking when presenting an exhibition format. We all embraced that conversation.

JAS: It’s been fun, everyone loves a big egg.

SG: If you had to express what’s drawn us to these artists what would that be? For me, I know all of them have incredible potential to surprise us with what directions they take next; I love that creative suspense.

HH: These artists and their work aren’t new to us, but through conversation and following their careers, we noticed they were all at this very interesting moment. Practices were developing, and solidifying, in thoughtful, impactful ways. It is a lovely opportunity to put a pin in such an important juncture, not as [the artists] are emerging, not mid-career but at this very fruitful space in between.

JAS: This particular project has allowed me to introduce work I know well to other artists’ topics of conversation. Everyone has that artist’s rhetoric, the one that allows both a slight of humour and progressive conversation to be in the same room. To me, some of the most enjoyable artists to work with have those practices; they can wear different clothes or speak multiple languages – it’s liberating.

SG: That leads us to the show’s title, ‘From a Common Gesture’.

JAS: Titling a show is often an arduous process. You either had it from the beginning or you’ll be talking to Chat GPT. What we did have from the beginning was a collective appreciation for where these artists are and what they are attempting to step into next. Perhaps the ‘common gesture’ is a form of throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks, a form of bashful bravery.

HH: For me, photography is so much about the community it harnesses… cross-pollinating and collaborating every minute. I like the idea that the piece in the magazine and the physical show that follows bring that same energy. 

SG: What’s next for all of you? 

HH: I’ll be providing opportunities for new important work to be seen and engaged with, while having the pleasure of working with the best in the business.

JAS: I have a unique responsibility with 10 14, managing a programme whilst also growing a space’s ethos from the ground up. I have to rely on my own compass a lot of the time. That way of working allows me to bring in projects that I feel flex against the traditional gallery infrastructure and ultimately make new ideas happen, which is essentially my operative: new ideas and new opportunities.

NCPH: Our mission is to make better things for our clients. Smarter, more beautiful and more sustainable brand expression holds the key to achieving creative and strategic ambitions. We have been working with Burberry for the last 15 years and have just supported the new vision and rebrand from a colours, materials and finishes point of view, incorporating Daniel Lee’s new branding and colours. We’re also working with Joseph, and collaborating with design agencies.

‘From a Common Gesture’ is open 8 December until 26 January 2024, at 10-14 Crossway, London N16 8HX, by appointment only, east.co

A version of this story appears in the January 2024 Next Generation Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today!