Hackney Wick 2001-2005 © Stephen Gill
LOCATION: Landskrona Foto, Kavallerigatan 4
OPENING HOURS: Thursday–Sunday, 12:00–17:00
DATES: 5 November 2026 – 28 March 2027
EXHIBITION OPENING: 5 November, 18:00–20:00. Advance registration required.
Observer, documentarist, experimenter and visual poet, Stephen Gill has spent more than three decades exploring the possibilities of photography. His work moves freely between documentary observation, chance and experimentation, continually adapting the photographic process informed by subjects he chooses to immerse himself in.
Gill’s practice is closely connected to place. For twenty years, the streets and neighbourhoods of East London provided both his subject and the geographical parameters within which he worked. Rather than seeking out the spectacular, he turned his attention to the everyday details of inner-city life, guided by an astute instinct for the intangible, the overlooked and the hidden details that shape a sense of place.
Around the time he made Hackney Wick, as Gill’s distrust of the photographic medium continued to grow, he began to feel the limitations of straight descriptive photography in conveying the full range of ideas and emotions associated with a place. This led him to question and dismantle much of what he had learnt about photography, working increasingly with its weaknesses as well as its descriptive strengths. At this point, his practice began to place greater faith in the absence of information by withholding, denying or obscuring.
This exhibition is a collaboration between Landskrona Foto and Galleri Format in Malmö, presented as two complementary parallel exhibitions together featuring works from eighteen series. At Landskrona Foto, Truths undisclosed reveal unspoken words – draws upon works from Gill’s many years in East London – including Hackney Wick, Hackney Kisses, Billboards and Trolley Portraits – are brought into dialogue with The Pillar and Night Procession made in Skåne where he now lives and works. It was here in Sweden, after many years of working in London, where he had already started to collaborate with subject or place, as he describes it, that he took this approach further. In Sweden, Stephen has since relinquished much of the authorship and handed it over to the subjects themselves to the point of sometimes removing himself altogether during the making process. Spanning different places, subjects and ways of execution, the photographs reflect Gill’s enduring curiosity about his immediate surroundings and his wish to step back and offer space for the subjects to unfold and shape the work.
At Galleri Format, Words unspoken reveal undisclosed truths – presents works that show the experimental and material side of Gill’s practice, where elements of his surroundings become part of the photographic process itself attempts to use photography to both describe, but also articulate a sense of place.
The two parallel exhibitions together encompass twenty-one series that stand alone and together offer a broader view of Gill’s practice and its development over more than thirty years.
BIOGRAFI
Stephen Gill was born in Bristol, UK, in 1971. His interest in photography began in childhood, alongside a fascination with insects and pond life, which he collected and examined under a microscope combined with a love of music, this newfound way of articulation through pictures and with an early technical understanding thanks to his father Stephen unearthed a unique way of articulation. This curiosity for responding and looking closely at the world has remained a thread throughout his practice. Gill moved to London, where the streets and communities of East London became central to his work for many years. He later settled with his family in Skåne, southern Sweden, where the surrounding landscape and its wildlife have opened new directions in his practice.
Gill’s work has been exhibited internationally and is held in numerous public and private collections. The photobook has been central to his practice throughout his career, not simply as a way of presenting photographs but as a form in its own right. In 2005, he founded the independent publishing imprint Nobody, through which he has published many of his books. His publications include Hackney Wick, Hackney Flowers, Buried, Coming up for Air, Coexistence, Talking to Ants, The Pillar and Night Procession.
Across these bodies of work, photography, bookmaking and experimentation form closely connected and evolving segments of a broad and multidimensional practice driven by a sustained astute attention and response to the world around him.
