Hady Barry’s i am (not) your mother is a deeply personal look at the complexities of familial relationships. Based on her own experiences of caring for her younger siblings, Barry has combined archival images and new documentary photographs with journal entries and excerpts from transcribed conversations with her mother, resulting in a tender and heart-wrenching portrait of a relationship which is full of both love and hurt. 

2 min readby Isabel Walter

Mahmoud Abu Hamda is a Palestinian photographer, based in Gaza. Since 2023 the subject-matter of his work has shifted, to focus on the ongoing genocide in Gaza. This shift towards depicting the humanitarian crisis was driven by proximity–like all photographers and journalists in Gaza, the devastation which he depicts is also the reality in which he lives. 

2 min readby Isabel Walter

A man leans on the counter in a domestic kitchen. A pan rests on the hob behind him, a white sheet is hung up over the window. The setting is sparse, but clean. He is reading a book, intently focussing on its pages. The title, set in bold type across its plain white cover reads ‘SURVIVAL.’  

2 min readby Isabel Walter

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was released in 2007, at the height of the Iraq war. Praised for its immersion and intensity, the game was released to international acclaim and sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. Previous iterations of the series were set in World War II, but this version was the first to be set in contemporary times, loosely based on a contemporary war. Video games which are set in the middle east have proliferated over the last two decades–with the term ‘middle east’ often used more as a vague, catch-all descriptor, rather than a precursor to a specific location. 

2 min readby Isabel Walter

One of the most striking, most enduring images from the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6th January, 2021 is of a man holding a staff with a viking-esqe helmet on his head, a fur shawl draped around his otherwise naked torso. Horns protruding, mouth agape, this image sybolised the absurd, hyper-real events that unfolded towards the end of Trump’s first presidency.  

2 min readby Isabel Walter

In her series Sonechko, Yak Ty? (Sunshine, How Are You?), Varvara Uhlik interrogates her memories of her early childhood. Born just five years after the fall of the Soviet Union, Uhlik grew up sensing the complexities of the nationhood and geography at that time in Ukraine. Born too late to experience first-hand the disorientating sense of identity which her parents developed under Soviet rule, as she grew older, she realised it was something she had instead inherited. Using archival family photographs which she digitally distorts, as well as newly staged scenes, the works in this series are playful, yet with a faintly sinister edge.  

2 min readby Isabel Walter