PhotoMonth London 2025 will establish its main pavilion at The Arts Pavilion in Mile End Park, where four exhibitions will be presented simultaneously. The festival's programming highlight is the group exhibition titled "Longing," selected through an open call by the festival's Programming Advisory Committee, consisting of Monica Allende, Avijit Datta, Cherelle Sappleton, Fiona Shields, and Charan Singh.
The exhibition features nine compelling photography projects that explore themes of identity, family, love, and resilience. Shreya Jakhar's "Beyond Boundaries" documents the silent resilience of her Naaniji (maternal grandmother), a woman confronting generational expectations in Indian patriarchal society. In India, when a married woman returns to live with her parents to care for them, it remains taboo – her duty is supposed to be with her in-laws. Yet Naaniji, defying norms, moved to Mandawa, a small town in Rajasthan, to care for her sick mother.
As the eldest of seven children, Naaniji had always been the pillar of her family. But as she aged, she found herself isolated – without emotional support from either her distant husband or her adult children, judged for breaking conventions. Despite these constraints, she fulfilled her duties in silence, embodying love that asks for nothing in return. Through Jakhar's lens, the project follows her daily gestures: caring for her mother, growing vegetables, managing the household, resolving land disputes – all under the critical gaze of the very person she was caring for.
Jay Lim's "Singapo-ren Love" explores his identity as a gay Singaporean-Chinese man through experiences of love, intimacy, and belonging, balancing introspection with resistance. Created between London and Singapore, the series examines family and romantic dynamics using the concept of "unfathomability" to translate queer experiences that escape dominant narratives. The images present scenes familiar to any Singaporean: café dates, getaways, family meals, mundane moments that also serve as camouflage for invisible realities.
Syd Shelton's "A Doctor's Story 1980-1990, Some Lives" features the work of Dr. David Widgery, who stated in 1990: "The general practitioner is both witness and actor; a privileged observer of endured pain, intimate sorrows, and jubilant healings." For a generation of East End residents, Dr. David Widgery was "The Doc," the physician encountered in the waiting room of Dr. Liebson's practice in Bethnal Green, or during his home visits in Limehouse housing estates. Shelton had the opportunity to accompany him and photograph many of his patients before Widgery's premature death in 1991.
Oliver Woods contributes "Dad Side of the Bed," an extract from "You Are My One and Only." These images are part of a larger series about the house where he grew up, which he photographed in detail after his parents' death. They also tell the story of his childhood and relationship with them, marked by the loss of his younger brother and sister, who died from an ultra-rare genetic disease. His mother often told him: "You are my one and only." This phrase always resonated between love and loss – he became an only child, but was no longer the eldest.
Melanie Issaka's "Blueprint 16" from the series "Blueprint: Black Skin, White Mask" explores the emotional and political terrain of the desire for belonging, roots, and recognition in spaces where Black bodies are often perceived as out of place. Inspired by Frantz Fanon's book, the series questions the psychological effects of colonialism and internalized racism. Using cyanotype, a process that transforms the artist's body into a white silhouette on blue background, Issaka visualizes the paradox of a presence that is both hyper-visible and invisible.
Eliska Sky presents "Miri and Kazuki," an extract from "The Red String," a series inspired by love and connection beyond cultural, religious, or physical differences. Drawing from the Japanese legend of the red thread of destiny, it captures couples, families, siblings, and friends of all backgrounds, united by an invisible thread symbolizing unalterable bonds between beings destined to meet. This series celebrates human connection through intimate portraits that embody inclusivity and the diversity of love in all its forms.
Reshma Teelar's "My Blossoming Graveyards" presents a deeply personal exploration of body image and self-acceptance. "I am not proud of what my body shows," Teelar states. "It bears marks inflicted by others, by myself, and by pain." Since childhood, she has been humiliated, mocked, and forgotten for her appearance. The project represents nine years of healing work, her attempt to reclaim normalcy, confront her fears, and show herself as she is.
Margaux Revol's "Augustine and Dido," from "The Pain Fugue" series, documents the desire for a normal life by following Augustine, a woman in her twenties with severe endometriosis – a chronic disease affecting one in ten women but remaining little-known and under-diagnosed. Her days unfold between her bed, bathtub, and sofa as pain repeats and time freezes. Through intimate portraits of this confinement and images of her body marked by hot water bottle heat, the series creates a poetic yet concrete visual space to represent invisible suffering.
Finally, Marcos Azulay's "God's Garden" explores how gardens symbolize humanity's desire to connect with the sacred across many traditions. As spaces of harmony, beauty, and contemplation, they embody the direct relationship between God and humanity – from the Garden of Eden to Islamic visions of paradise. Whether enclosed or wild, real or imaginary, gardens invite us to pause, reflect, and feel something greater than ourselves, reminding us that paradise is not just a memory of the past but a present possibility where the spiritual and earthly meet.
More information about PhotoMonth London 2025 is available at PhotoMonth.co.uk and on their Instagram page. The festival promises to offer visitors an immersive experience exploring contemporary photography's power to address universal themes of human experience, identity, and connection across diverse cultural backgrounds.
