Consider how love is represented, preserved and remembered....
The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love - whether we call it friendship or family or romance - is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light." - James Baldwin, Nothing Personal
Consider how love is represented, preserved and remembered through an archive of photobooks, novels and non-fiction works in Meditations on Love. This special reading room is curated by Develop, a collective of six young people who have been commissioned to curate the show by The Photographers’ Gallery.
Designed as a welcoming reading room, everyone is invited to explore the plethora of books and reflect on the common thread that runs through stories of resilience, community, friendship, subversion, identity and queerness.
Presenting the many languages of love through a global lens, photobooks from Tami Aftab, Ollie Adegboye, Deana Lawson, Ewen Spencer, and many others explore love’s complex and varying iterations: tender, provocative, queer, defiant and sacrificial.
Together, this series of eclectic narratives attempts to articulate love’s capacity to endure amidst adversity, and its revolutionary power to resist.
Develop at The Photographers’ Gallery
Develop is a three-year programme (2023-2026) that supports and commissions emerging creatives aged 18-24 through a series of talks and workshops around a photography-based outcome each year.
The 2024 Develop collective are:
Tolu Elusadé
Charlie Bird
Madeleine Woodhous
Kymara Akinpelumi
Taja Lewis Boodie
Kairo Urovi
Further Information: Meditations on Love | The Photographers Gallery