Absence, curated by sociologists Laura Harris and Maike Pötschulat, is a new group exhibition that brings together the photography of seven visual sociologists, alongside finalists from an open call for photography of absences in the Liverpool City Region.
I’m really pleased that the two photographs that I submitted to the open call have been included in the show. Finding Solitude: Meadow, a photograph of my installation on Hilbre Island in 2025, features on the digital screen alongside 100 other images taken by photographers highlighting notions of absence – absence of people, absence of care or an absence of a physical presence such as spaces where buildings and homes once stood.
Finding Solitude: Island, which is a photograph of the chair I adapted during many visits to Hilbre, sitting alone on top of a rock stack in the bay, was wonderfully selected to be one of five finalists, with those photographs being printed and displayed as part of the exhibition. It sits alongside works by Paradise Made (I particularly enjoyed this photo that was included on the screen from within the recently demolished Hardshaw Centre in St Helens), Daniel Frost, Alisha Iqbal and Dan Murphy
The rest of the exhibition is a wonderful collection of visual documents of how life leaves traces behind, and a theme that I really identify with in my own work. Terence Heng and Gesche Würfel’s works document changing landscapes. A highway is routed through a Singapore cemetery in Heng’s work where he connects with the rituals that connect those present with the spirits and memories of absent ancestors, whilst Würfel cycles along the route of the Berlin wall, documenting six, fixed viewpoints at each 2.8Km stop, creating richly textured layered photo-composites of this once-political divide.
I recommend a look at Kyler Seleny’s Found Polaroid archive – a number of photographs are displayed that have been found at car boot and yard sales, and now members of the public are invited to contribute Flash Fiction stories to accompany the images. A layering of memory, documentary fact and the fictions that we read into other people’s lives. David Schalliol’s Isolated buildings are a series of beautiful images, documents of buildings that stand alone in their space – the ‘nail houses’ in their area that somehow defy the destruction of their neighbours. Similarly to the found polaroids, you can find yourself wondering who still lives in that building and what the story is. David spoke about the process behind his work at an enlightening panel discussion and shared how he had been invited to dinner with some of the residents of the buildings that feature – a reminder that as artists who observe other people’s lives, that we should do this with great care and attention to the ethics of this work.
The final room in the show features three photographers who all document absence in the context of conflict. Setareh Kazemi’s photojournalistic work in Iran highlights wonderful images of women and their daughters who want to feel seen by a female photographer when the world around them feels increasingly precarious. Manal Massalha’s Standing Tall series looks at Palestinian life and hardship in the Occupied Territories in the West Bank – saplings broken by vandalism that will no longer bear fruit sit with photographs of families who have suffered a similar fate. Makeshift, by Paweł Starzec features the sites that were places where atrocities happened during the Bosnian War – the current landscape now sculpted by the victors with the photographs of picturesque landscapes and banal urban spaces living at odds with the text accompanying each image that documents what evil humans are capable of.
The exhibition continues until 11th July at the Stable Gallery, St George’s Hall, Liverpool, and a tour by the curators will run on 13th June 1-2pm.