We’re pleased to host a series of informal talks that celebrate photobooks, zines, and independent publishing. We welcome individuals to join us on select Monday evenings. These sessions offer a relaxed and engaging space for creators to share the stories, processes, and ideas behind their work. This will be an opportunity to share knowledge and build relationships with those interested in publishing.
Talks take place on select Monday evenings between 18:00–21:00.
Guests can RSVP. Please also note that our basement gallery does not have step-free access and involves 25 steps.
Talks begin at 18:30, with an opportunity to meet the photographer and view their publication during the event. There will also be time to ask the photographer questions during the second half of the Talk.
Having Had Faith by Leah McLaine
Leah McLaine (b.2001, Newcastle) is a British Malaysian photographer who works in black and white 35mm and 120 film, and the darkroom. Growing up strictly religious, her orthodox jewish background became incongruous with her sexual identity, and after attempts to change, she became estranged. She now works to document her life, found family and relationships, finding many of her queer friends also estranged, or no longer having family members to document their lives. She uses portraiture as a form of attention, care and prayer; a way of keeping the nearest and dearest near and dear.
Having Had Faith is Mclaine's debut photo book made this year which foregrounds the question of what to do with a religiously tuned body when the mind has lost faith through a sequence of portraits. Mclaine is particularly interested in the concept of “faith” not as some innate given capacity to believe; but rather, something the body and mind has to work hard to attain or to get back to. She foregrounds this topic of faith in her book as a central issue for many young people today; a generation who largely have lost touch with the faith ingrained in their childhood, either as a consequence of prescribed incompatibility with (sexual) identity, or a loss of hope in general with the world and the future. This turn back to spirituality, outside of the bounds of organised religion or liturgy, emerges sometimes in a prayer that catches one off guard when in trouble, and is what drives Mclaine’s work today.