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Drawing influences from the classics, Alecsandra Dragoi approaches subjects falling under the subject of documentary photography from both distant yet intimate positions. There is an urge to penetrate but also a strong restraint to not come too close to the point of attachment, that way creating a safe clear space amongst both sides of the story. Personal backgrounds have no trouble coming forth though: this series of portraits, each speaking from its own experience, constituting parts of a bigger picture, that of rural life and whatever comes along with it. And though “banality” would probably be the wrong definition, no other word could catch the essence of such circumstances. 

Alecsandra Dragoi’s “Ritual” is set in Romaina’s countryside, by most considered to be the heart and soul of its old tradition, “where peasant culture remains a strong force and medieval life prevails”. Divided in two parts, it tends to document and pass through such occurrences, traditionally stuffed with strange meanings and symbols from another era. At first it attempts to introduce the “bear culture” concept via citing the differentiation between man’s masculinity versus the femininity found in the women’s costumes. Secondly, it digs deeper; what’s the benefit of all this? It must have some kind of impact on people’s everyday lives, outside the period these traditions take place. Alecsandra yet comes off with this: “they evoke death but bestow fertile life.” And she’s right, considering the fact that these occurrences all happen in a modern era with no clue as to why, other than paying tribute to old customs. The whole thing is a celebration of the sheer existence of any for of animal instinct left and found in today’s mechanical way of life. 

“Accompanied by their Gypsy trainer and a youth beating a tambourine-type instrument, the animals crawl through the crowd. Reaching the centre, they perform a dance until eventually, the bears fall dead on the ground. After their hearts are taken by the trainer, they return to life: theoretically, a more gentle one. Even today, more bears exist in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains than any other place in Europe and this ancient rite siggets the power of man to take nature.” 

Go through Alecsandra’s body of work and you’ll find plenty of scenes of such instances. A somehow picturesque aggregation of moments documented with high concern and serious affection. Having recently graduated from the University of Portsmouth and with not few awards/exhibitions already on her side (she recently won first place at Sony World Photography Awards 2013), the now 21 year old UK resident Alecsandra has quite a bright future in front of her. “Ritual” has turned into a photography book with the help of the IdeasTap arts charity and also on its way is “Success Without Borders”, another one of her projects - in a way quite autobiographical. Having left Romania herself, her projects deeply explore notions of migration while honoring Romania’s rich tradition, always through a nostalgic touch and an ever evolving interest to experience its offerings. Why not join her? 

Words - Panagiotis Meletis / Volume Six, European Photography: Looking for the Black-box

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The title of Nicholas Albrecht’s first monograph has been respectfully poached from the 1926 novel of the same name by Italian writer Luigi Pirandello. In it, Pirandello (1926) elaborated about the decomposition of life and the deconstruction of the self through his central character Vitangelo (whose name can be translated as ‘life of an Angel’). After being led to the edge of madness Vitangelo finally arrives at a state of inner peace, no longer desiring anything and endeavouring to follow life moment by moment with no history or past to weigh him down. 

The initial heavily vignetted photograph of a young boy posing in his school uniform alerts us to the possibility of a work centred on the idea of identity. The clear lack of a school tie and tightly collared shirt suggests a constrictive lack of care, or perhaps poverty. Is this the forced smile of the author, a found image or an early snap of his Salton Sea subjects? Having spent three months getting to know the community before he started to photograph has resulted in some tentative and respectful portraits. This is the respect of an outsider whose place in the community is new and uncertain. 

In effect Albrecht is presenting to us the result of an organic process. The fictional essay that acts as a forward and introduction to the book follows and summarises, what we must assume is Albrecht’s introduction to Salton Sea and his subsequent 10 month stay there. The story  an he read as a subtext to the images as it eloquently seeks to extrapolate from the chaotic flow of photographs a narrative of Albrecht’s experiences. 

This is quite useful as the various visual styles, consisting of intentionally constructed scenes, composted portraits, documentary and tonal landscape studies, initially confuse the senses as we struggle to find a place to situate Albrecht’s work. This ambiguity only adds to the unsettling nature of the disparate and chaotic flow of content that appears more like a visual puzzle we are being challenged to solve. 

There is also an unsettling psychological tension to the work that hints at an implied violence. Absence and silence permeate the pages giving the work a sense of uncertainty and mystery. The double spread of impenetrable black hills set against a dark blue starless night sky informs us of the solitary nature of the desert, a place devoid of the extraneous. Here there are only the hopes of a young girl pinned to the wall as a statement of intent, harshly lit by desert sun; here the vegetation looms like a crazed animal as the landscape conspires to engulf you in its moisture bereft soil; here are only flies, snakes, insanity and death, and a community held together by God and the threads of shred experience. 

Albrecht seeks to break down the superficial and familiar through presenting his narrative as a series of seemingly dislocated images. In contrast to Vitangelo chasing his true self through reason alone, Albrecht hints at the absurdity of constructing an idea of place through obvious or over representation and presents the liberating irrationalism of his narrative as an antidote to reason and a guide to the unravelling of self. Recall the young boy confined in a tie-less school uniform compared to the final image: a brooding young teen, bare-chested and psychologically dark but stripped of pretence and captured in the hard contrast of harsh desert window light. The filters of our pre-conditioned selves, in some way like the window blind, no longer act to prevent the revealing of the true, and somewhat terrifying, raw inner self. 

Albrecht’s work impels you to look again as, like a mirage, the images ebb and flow, sometimes obvious, sometimes not, weaving together a narrative of tension of place and belonging, of isolation and emptiness, of ordinary lives bleached bare by the scorched and hostile landscape. These images are arranged to cut through falsely reassuring outer appearances to reveal a more internal and disquieting process of self-withdrawal and the questioning of identity and place. Compared to the ubiquitous and cliched arty snaps of water engulfed telegraph poles and aesthetic decaying trailer homes, Salton Sea has never looked so interesting. 

Nicholas Albrecht: One No One and One Hundred Thousand

Printed by Schilt Publishing 

ISBN: 9789053308219

19X24cm Hardcover 84 pages 

£35 

Volume Seven: Analysing the Evidence

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“We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.”

— Henry David Thoreau, "Walden"

Our core connection with nature has been with us since our ancestors first took steps the sunlight and examined the world around them. Yet in 2020, you won't be wrong for thinking that our respect, care and duty to wild spaces has somewhat been depleted. Through consumerism, profit and hollowing out the ground beneath us, it can be argued that we have lost sense of the true power and resolve of the wilds. With this in mind, Luke Browns project 'Wooded Heights' documents and explores the ecosystem of the ancient Caledonia forest and Grampian Mountains of the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland.

The Caledonia Forest is not special just because it's a wild space that has been relatively untouched by man. It's special because it's a natural species to Scotland. With many forests across the UK being American imports, this ecosystem boasts its own conifers, pines and birch which have been dwelling in the Scottish wild lands longer than we have. With this in mind, Brown's work reminds us the importance of these natural spaces, photographing them with care and respect. Spanning forests, giant mountains covered in snow, the work feels like a love letter to mother nature. A beckoning call that these places are important and need our protection.

With the climate crisis growing out of our control each day, these photographs may become a living testament to what was there, how they once looked. Lost in time, yet preserved within a photograph.

See more of Luke Brown's work here - http://www.brownluke.com/

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As babies, Alex and his twin brother Harry were unable to see. Stumbling around their tiny worlds, unable to communicate that they were living in a blurry world. The It Stares Back explores this time in their lives, as well as the relationship between two identical twins and their own self identity. Far too often, the rhetoric with identical twins is how they think the same, act the same, are the same. Forming your own sense of self with this additional pressure from the outside world is challenging, a challenge which The It Stares Back explores in forensic set pieces. 

The It Stares Back leans on the theory that in the first 18 months of a child's life, they are autonomous with their environment, simply living with no sense of self. Inspired by the psychoanalysis Jacques Lacan who coined the term ‘The Mirror Stage’ , which is given the early stages of a child’s journey to self expression and finding one's identity, Colley’s work explores the sense of self and vision, in a staged and archival series of images which digs at the question, what makes us, us? Is it how we see ourselves? How do others see us? How does vision and our understanding of the world around us from formative years impact on the adult?

Within Lacan’s theory, he pushes the narrative that even we are detached from ourselves and what it is to be human, simply playing out human characteristics yet being detached from our early, original programming. With this in mind, Colley’s work feels like it is trying to connect to being human and a relationship with his twin, whilst also pushing forward with this clear visual identity of the self. 

The work itself is a performance, with Colley both behind and infront of the camera, creating cinematic stills which feel like they’ve been lifted straight out of a Stanley Kubric or David Lynch feature. Although Harry is not seen in the project apart from archival imagery, it is easy for the mind to be tricked into thinking Harry is appearing without us realising (Colley assures me it's only him in the portraits). 

To me, there is also an underlying darkness to this work. The giant machines used to test our vision, encompassing the subject seem brutal and unforgiving, I’m reminded of images of twins during 1940s Nazi Germany where the Nazi fascination of twins and their ability to combat diseases, led by Josef Mengele were carried out. Perhaps this isn’t Colley’s intention, yet through screaming faces, a clear discomfort, these ideas are brought forward. 

With these images which seem distressing, perhaps Colley and his twin battling with machines of vision to find their own self, that sense of breaking a mould, pushing, gnawing and clawing his way out if a pre-prescribed reality, The It Stares Back poses more questions than answers when it comes to our each unique individuality and how our vision of our surround informs us, which any good photographic work should do. These questions are left open, like a beading eye through the lens of a camera,  scanning the world around itself, processing the information. 

See more of Colley's work here - https://www.alexcolley.co.uk/

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On the 15 February 1993, Peter Watkin’s mother walked off Zandvoot Beach into the North Sea. Her final act haunts Watkin’s series The Unforgetting (2012-14: a poetic exploration of the traces left by such trauma. Watkin’s autobiographical works incorporate a plethora of sculptural elements, such as casting, stacking and obscuring, but more poignantly, they are a meditation on the practice of archiving and remembering: how certain material is preserved or lost through the process of memorialisation. Watkin’s photographs of object assemblages - reminiscent of 16th century cabinets of curiosity - reflect on, but given their subject, are also notable for their lack of tears. While black and white photography is traditionally associated with nostalgia, the work is spared of straightforward sentimentality: objects are catalogued and composed in a manner that evokes early scientific photography or evidence gathered at a crime scene, encapsulating something universal, rather than remaining solely with the overtly personal - the distance of time, perhaps, affords here a mannered approach that is not only clinical, but poetic at the same time. 

Interview by Rory Duckhouse / Volume: Visibility and Ocular Truth, published 2014.

In the introduction to The Unforgetting you describe it as “an exploration of a personal history that cannot be told with any certainty, but is told anyway.” What drove you to explore this subject? Was it a cathartic process for you?

The fear of forgetting, and consequently an awareness of the limitations and failings of memory and photography, are perhaps the central concern of this body of work. The contradictory motif here lies in the treatment of the personal history as a narrative structure, which seems to preclude access to truth that is purportedly set forth from the title. The realization that this search for truth was futile stemmed perhaps from a series of interviews that I made with key family  members for a film that I never completed. I now think of most films as preparatory research for the resulting, mostly photographic, works that we’re discussing here; but what was interesting and transformative for me was the way the family had reconciled the trauma of loss, into a unified narrative that deviated very little from one person to the next. It was soon after finishing this filming to work that I altered my approach, embracing the ambiguities of photographic representation, turning my attention on the objects archived by my Grandmother, and the village where my mother grew up. 

The catharsis, if you can call it that, has come from the time dedicated to the subject, as well as in terms of the intellectual and emotional work invested. I suppose there is a great deal more that is withheld than revealed in this body of work, but this has been a particularly important part of the project: the tension between revealing and concealment. 

I think this idea of revealing and concealment is most prevalent in the studio images of super 8 film, the accordion and other personal objects. Their function is obvious but their personal relationship to your family history remain a mystery. 

Yes absolutely. Still life has a long history of placing the everyday and overlooked from center, using a language of symbolism that goes beyond mere function and form. These still life photographs go beyond mere function and form. These still life photographs were made up of objects or combinations of things taken from my Grandmother’s house in Germany - in fact all the photographic work was made there. I’ve come to think of her house as a kind of living museum or archive in a sense. Little changes, everything is categorised and organised in a way that meaning seems fixed, or has already been attributed to things according to an overarching narrative that constitutes her life. Isolating these objects out of this context seems to point them towards their value or importance as part of a greater whole. Three of the photographs (Super 8, Roemer Glasses, and Ute), which are considered a  set, deal both figuratively and abstractly with this idea of transparency and opacity, revealing and concealment. In Super 8, reels of home movie footage - containing images of my motherf as a child, holidays from the 70’s, and so on - are placed before the camera. The images contained are fascinating, and personally insightful, but here their treatment is to be reduced down to a singular, uniform image. There is a push and pull between being offered access to some personal remnant, and the opacity offered up by its photographic representation, which points towards a more universal reading. There are of course stories bound up within all of these objects, but not necessarily illuminated in any detail by the photographs. In my mind, they come to stand for something greater than a small personal piece of information. 

Do the assemblages of image and object reference specific events? Or deal with photographs failure to truly represent memory? 

I suppose it’s a mixture of both things really. The object assemblages work in different ways, sometimes referencing my memories, but usually going temporally beyond the reach of my memory, mixing up family histories and containing hidden stores - a temporal shift beyond one person’s memory. There is a photograph of a log with an axe embedded in its surface with a photograph of my Grandfather as a young man rested against it. This references memories I have from childhood of my Grandfather chopping and setting wood around our house, but also from the last time we spent time, doing this very activity. There is a physical, concrete casted log, which is also exhibited, reproduced three times, and rested upon a steel plinth. They are at once an indexical imprint of the object, but not the object itself; objects devoid of colour as on the most part the accompanying photographs are. I suppose the task is interpreting something inherent to the fabric of memory and time, and of course there is a part of this that acknowledges the inadequacy of memory, but the work is more concerned, perhaps, by its parameters, and its elasticity when explored. Memories aren’t fixed; their form is forever changing, so undertaking work such as this seems to give them a form, an output, but this transforms that purer, internalised form of memory, the kind of memories we rarely share with other people. There is always that kernel of truth at the very center of all this, and that’s worth pursuing. 

Wood features across a series of images, being presented to the viewer before being chopped up. What is the symbolism of this in the project? 

I guess there is a lot in the recurrence of wood that speaks to me of Germany, of folklore, the forest, and rural life. The German side of my family are form a small village in the south of Germany - a bit of a time capsule really. Wood is used in different references, such as the waterwheel of my great-great-grandfather’s sawmill, the photograph of which obscures the face of my great-uncle, who drowned in a waterfall before I was born. There is the aforementioned photograph of my grandfather, the concrete casted logs, stacked wood, and such. Perhaps most ambiguously is the photograph of the cropped arm of my brother suspending a large, split piece of beech wood in a half domestic, half studio environment. There are a few things that I like about this photograph - the way the weight of the object can’t be ascertained, as well as locating a reason for its presentation, and the way the wood seems to flow organically out of his hand, like hair or water - but mostly I like its resistance to straightforward interpretation - it keeps you guessing, and there is this idea of suspension that works on various levels. I can still look at this photograph and find new meaning in it, the ambiguity of which in this case is attractive. 

The series is largely Black and White, but in parts changes to colour, such as in the image of the Baptismal dress which is behind yellow glass, What brought this change of focus? 

The work titled Taufe is perhaps one of the most integral pieces in this body of work and is a photograph of a suspended baptismal dress that belonged to my mother. She is really at the heart of all this, the subject that the rest of the work emanates from. It’s a black and white photograph, glazed in yellow glass. The dress appears to float, a weightless suspension in the center of the frame. There is something in the indeterminate scale of the dress that is fascinating to me; the way the fabric hangs in relation to the curtain and obvious corollary to themes of water, suspension, and the symbolic representation of death in the Christian baptismal tradition. There is a certain truth found in this remnant and in the contours of the dress and how it hangs along with the flowing gauze of the curtain. The yellow glazing that colours the photograph is thought here as a wash that is secondary to the photograph, but also of the fascination of putting colour back into the image, of trying to put the yellow back into the dress, so to speak. Colour is used here to move closer to the object, before abstracted by the photograph, yet somehow its colour inhabits the space of dreams and hallucinations, and an uncertain reality. The dress is of course yellow, but the yellow of the glass is not the yellow of the dress. Something that comes to mind is Wim Wenders’s film Wings of Desire and the interplay between colour and black and white, which of course is used here to signal a shift in reality. Quite crudely put, the sepia-toned black and white, in which the film is wrapped around, comes to represent the world of angels, the infinite, eternity, and is largely our visual register throughout. When the angel Damiel comes crashing down to earth, relinquishing his immortality and thus falling into the human condition, he also makes a fall into colour. He intuits, experiences, and bleeds in full cinematic Technicolour. Colour comes to represent the living, and the human condition and our place in the continual present. 

See more of Peter's work here : http://www.peterwatkins.co.uk/index.html

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Back in 2013 we published in our subculture issue a project by Brett Gundlock, which explored Neo Nazi's in Canada, where Gundlock spent time with individuals whom all belong to the Ayran Guard. With far right politics and opinions dominating the world and have been given a platform through the likes of Trump, Boris Johnson and Jair Bolsonaro, we revisit our interview with Gundlock who sheds light on his intimate time with a group of people whom are no longer on the fringes of society, but dominating the headlines.

Hi Brett, thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions about your project ‘The Movement’. My first question would have to be what led you to document the subject matter? 

While working for a newspaper in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, I stumbled upon a very vocal skinhead group called the Aryan Guard. My assignment was to cover this group’s first annual march through the streets of Calgary. I guess I was naive, but to learn what these guys - and groups like them around the world still existed. It really surprised me. I had to know more. 

Within the series the subject seems at ease with you being there, how did you approach the subjects? 

I approached the group directly through their website. It took a fair bit of time and a lot of interesting interrogations by the skinheads, but they eventually let me into their world. After a while I blended into the background, allowing me to photograph the group and their activities candidly. Through this group I made contact with other groups. My relationship with the Aryan Guard worked as a reference to gain access and photograph other groups. Thanks to the internet, the social web of these groups is really widespread. They are remarkably easy to find once you are looking for them. 

Can you talk about your favourite photograph from this project and why? 

I don’t have a favourite photo. At the time this series explored a new aesthetic and way of working for myself. I am happy with what they say as a group of photos and the dialogue they create together. Individually, I don’t think they are very good. But, if I had to choose one at the risk of sounding like an arrogant prick, I would pick the one of Jordan sitting at a computer in his basement. The emotion in his eyes is kind of the peak of the series for me and it was exactly what I was trying to capture. I initially approached this as a literal photojournalist, but thanks to my mentors I was able to move this to more of a lyrical, less linear piece. 

Your approach photographically seems very candid, how did that come about, was that your intention or did it just develop? 

I think it is the style of working I am drawn to in general. I am a participant in all of the scenes and I think the viewer understands that, but I pull back when I choose to photograph and make my observations with the camera. It is kind of hard to explain, I basically just hang out. 

After a while of shooting the project, did a bond between you and the people you photographed develop? Or was it more of a photographer and subject approach?

This was a very difficult part of shooting this work. I was so close with these guys I was kind of a part of the group; at one point half of my friends on Facebook were skinheads, which was kind of funny. I always made it clear who I was and why I was there though. I didn’t lie about my beliefs or opinions, they actually respected the dialogue when I presented counter arguments to their ideals. It is hard to describe. 

They always jokingly introduced me as the journalist, which I was cool with. There was a few times that I had to establish the boundaries though. 

Can you give a social situation as an example?  

One winter night I was sitting on a bus with Rob, Tyler and Kevin (who at that time formed a group called WEB - Western European Bloodlines in Calgary, Canada,) headed to a downtown bar. Fueled by beer, their drunken actions differed from that of other young males in their demographic; instead of chasing girls, obnoxiously yelling or breaking stuff, the Nazis attention was directed at a group of three young Asians at the front of the bus. Wearing backpacks, white Nike shirts and flat brim hats, the last people these guys were expecting to ride a bus with that night were some of the most dangerous Skinheads in Canada. 

Like any bully, the waters were tested with a few comments. Met with no response the Skin took advantage of their meek prey and began to question their language and heritage in an increasingly boisterous and aggressive way. Seconds away from the stop, the Skinheads were standing over this group of highschoolers, who were obviously very scared. As the doors opened, Rob, the unofficial leader of the group, called his friends off the kids. Rob was in violation of two terms of his various probation; if caught, a night out drinking would be a direct trip to jail. The other two welcomed this excuse to back out of a situation looking dominant and strong. They laughed into the night - getting off on the shot of adrenaline. 

Seeing the fear, confusion and pain in the eyes of everyone on the bus was pretty tough. When their eyes pointed at me, I wanted to apologize and explain my role in the situation. That would have compromised my relationship with the Skinheads though. I am happy the situation did not turn violent, I wouldn’t have had a choice at that point. 

Can you tell us more about this group’s particular social and political stance? Or did they fall into what most outsiders would assume a Neo Nazi group ideals would be? 

Well, their views are pretty much in line up with the traditional Neo-Nazi Skinhead handbook. They believe that Zionists (an undefined group of Jewish people,) are slowly taking over the world and that Hitler was on the right path. Recently “non-whites” have become a major target with these white power groups. They see them as threatening the existence of the white race, through various ways, which is a pretty ridiculous argument with a lot of hotels in it. 

It is hard to talk about and repeat these ideas publicly, they make my skin crawl. But these beliefs are still alive and strong behind a lot of closed doors around the world. 

While being amongst this particular group of people, were there times when your opinion clashed and caused debate? Or did you place yourself firmly as someone who is there to document, and leave personal opinions aside? 

I would never force my opinion on these guys, but when asked I was happy to offer it (although generally a little more diplomatically than this interview.) The key to my long term access with these guys was to actually listen with them and engage in a respectful debate. They really appreciated that and it is not something that happens often. 

But generally, I tried to play the ‘fly on the wall’ photographer. I would just spend as much time with them as I could. After a day of being with them I would have to go back to the real world and hang out with my regular friends. 

The Skinhead culture can mean many things, for some subcultures it’s just about the music and fashion, and there is no racism involved. Did the subjects express the reasons why they follow what they do? 

It is hard to generalize how these guys initially became involved with these white power groups, everyone had different backgrounds, influences and beliefs coming in.

Largely, the ideaology initially perks the interest of a perspective Neo-Nazi Skinhead recruit. The main identifying factor would have been the will to belong to something; being accepted in a group was the main draw for new supporters and also the main recruitment tool. 

Were there times when the opinions and political/social stance of this Neo Nazi group offended and troubled you? Did you keep a step back and approach it in a strict photographer relationship or did you speak your opinion? 

There were a lot of situations where I was uncomfortable with how they were treating someone or the general discussion. I never had any major altercations with the Skinheads, but there were often instances where I had to make a quick decision on whether or not to intervene. In these instances I justified the fact that this behaviour would exist whether or not I was there with a camera or not, so if nothing else documenting it would be a positive thing. 

What are your plans for the future? 

I am currently photographing vigilante communities in Mexico. There have been over 20 communities who see their citizens arm themselves and take control of their towns. 

My work has naturally gravitated towards photographing communities under extreme influence and the social conventions they develop to live a regular life. I am also photographing in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, the boomtown associated with the Alberta Oil Sands. 

Volume 4: Subculture 

See more of Brett's work here - https://www.brettgundlock.com/

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Since the 60s, the queer night scene has been a corner stone in the LGBTQIA+ communities daily life, the clubs and pubs where were you met to catch up, socialise and loose yourself in glorious technicolour. The Stonewall riots in 1969 helped solidify the queer movement as one that was not going to slow down, purse first into the fight for equality and the right to do, well, what we want to do. For me, as an openly queer man, my own relationship with the queer scene is different to others. It's not somewhere I went to socialise, it's a place I avoided. The bright lights, loud music and larger than life characters would be a welcoming draw for most, but my country boy sensibility and lack of access to these places left a big glitter filled hole in my life. It’s something I regret, and wish I could have experienced whilst growing up in my formative years. I am of the genuine believe that queer people take so long to figure out whom they are, that there is often a 10 year gap between our straight counterparts in terms of where we are in life, our wants, needs and how we view ourselves. This of course, is not true for everyone, hetronormality is a lifestyle that the queer community is expected to conform too, but graciously declines, one stiletto at a time. 

This lack of experience of loosing yourself under the glitterball is what lures me to the work by Rhiannon Adam, a queer photographer who makes work on people, place and anything that strikes a cord. Your Disco Needs you is Adam direct response to her early years as a queer woman, expressing herself, finding herself and having a good time. Hairy chests bearing jewellery, bodies entangled with one another and limbs flowing across the frame in time with the music is what greats us with this body of work, a euphoric look at life on the scene and those who occupy the spaces.

The queer scene however used to be a lot busier than this. With apps taking over queer spaces (we can open our phones up and go on an app to fulfil our desires rather than go to the scene) the nights of regular parties, bright lights and a pulsing beat are less frequent, only saved by nights like Sink the Pink and other calendar events to keep our restless dancing feet to have something to look forward to. Adam recalls her early years on the scene, and what they meant to her as snogging gay men on podiums, sniffing poppers on rides at Brighton Pride and getting lifts home from DJ’s and drag queens when the lights go up. Regretting not documenting these moments, Adam's project Your Disco Needs You is a love letter to the past, as well as a time capsule of the now, preserving what the queer scene has now before even more spaces disappear into the night. 

What I love about this work is its energy, the colour, the energy, how candid and care free the images feel. These are more than club photographs which we see all the time, these feel like feelings, a true send up to queerness in all its glory. This work is a fabulous step into the after hours when the norms have gone to sleep, where we can be free, happy, love and let the genders and sounds blend without care. It's far too often I see work about queer lives, the queer scene documented by straight photographers, and the energy, mood and feeling never feels the same compared to images produced by those who are apart of this community, and scene. Instead of taking portraits of drag queens, people in costumes which some made deem ‘outrageous’, Adam's has clicked the shutter down when it felt right, when the moment has taken her, when something filled with love and energy needs to be documented. There is no voyeuristic look at the ‘others’ here. These photographs represent a place and a mood where we are all welcome, without sliding into the tropes of ensuring the regular characters are documented. 

Your Disco Needs You may be a love letter to the past and a recording of the now, but for me they speak into a much deeper level of how Adam herself, in these places feels. It's no surprise to anyone, being LGBTQIA+ isn’t easy, despite the steps in equality we get in the West and the more open the media is to treating us as equal, I myself always feel like I’m looking over my shoulder. That someone may take a disliking to who I am. This isn’t misplaced fear either, London for me has been one of the least tolerant places to be queer. With this in mind, these photographs feel like and are a safe port from rocky waters of the big smoke, places where we can become or simply be. Adam has captured her nights on the scene in such a colourful, honest and personal way, I want her to lead me onto the dance floor now and catch up on what I’ve been missing all these years.

See more of Rhiannon's work here: https://www.rhiannonadam.com/