Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other: A Photography Conference

*Sales will close at 11:59, Wednesday 24 June 2026, and we'll switch to a waiting list. Please do contact us if you can't make it, so we can make your ticket available!*

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Overview

In 1994, writer, critic and historian Dame Marina Warner delivered the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC on the theme ‘Six Myths of Our Time: Managing Monsters’. Thirty years on, her analyses of social anxieties blister with relevancy: six wide-ranging and pin sharp reflections that wheel from the fury aimed at single mothers, to the foundations of toxic masculinity, the loss of childhood innocence, an anthropomorphism of nature, the fear and dehumanisation of migrants, and to nostalgic lies about national identity. Through the grand narratives of the Monster and the Other, Warner asks us to look again at examples of oppression, prejudice, and stereotype, in the context of mythology and the retelling of histories.

This intersectional and interdisciplinary photography conference, entitled ‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other’, revisits Warner’s social critique in today’s digital-obsessed world: one still attuned to male desire, increasingly shaped by biased machine-learning, hostage to beauty cults, and bombarded with misogynist and fascist media. 

Expect a fast-aced day of 14 speakers, 15-minute talks, that challenge dominant accounts of the Other in contemporary photography – from the traditional to the experimental to the genre-bending. As the conference is open to the public, it is intended to reach a broad, diverse audience that is as accessible as possible.

Presentations will question, respond to, or skirt the edges of ‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other’ as well as the following thematic provocations:

• Future, intersectional feminism and its possible afterlives

• Other, underrecognised or uncategorised knowledge 

• The excluded or displaced body 

• Transformation, shape-shifting and alter-egos

• Mimicry, duplication, fakery and appropriation

• Creaturely or post-human forms.

SPEAKER REVEAL (first announcement)

Sujata Setia @sujatasetia

Sujata Setia is a lens-based interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on social justice and gender-based violence. Her practice sits at the intersection of photography and art based practices, research, and community collaboration, and has been exhibited internationally. She is the recipient of the Wellcome Photography Prize, Sony World Photography Award (Creative Category) and the Centre for British Photography Project Realisation Grant amongst others.

Anne Nwakalor @anne_alagbe

Anne Nwakalor is a Visual Artist and the Founding Editor of No! Wahala Magazine, a contemporary photography magazine dedicated to showcasing authentic visual stories told by African creatives, and No! Wahala Media, a creative non profit that champions African photographers through education, publishing and platforming their work. Outside of the magazine and non-profit, Anne is a Curator and a writer who presently works within the art sector in the UK.

Marc Provins @marcprovinsprojects

Marc Provins is a Senior Lecturer at LJMU and an artist working with photography and expanded image-making. His work explores queer experience, memory, and the quiet meeting points of body and landscape. Much of the work begins with walking and paying attention to edges, thresholds, and overlooked details. Using everyday technologies in slow, tactile ways, he creates diaristic images reflecting on intimacy, aging, and shifting identity.

SPEAKER REVEAL (second announcement)

Lāsma Poiša @lasmapoisa

Lāsma Poiša is a Latvian photographer, writer and educator based in West Yorkshire. Working across photography and text, her practice explores motherhood, memory, inheritance, belonging and the psychological landscapes of family life. Through autobiographical image-making, she examines the tensions between care and identity, often focusing on themes of transformation, estrangement, and the complexities of maternal experience.

Zohreh Mohammadhosseinpour @zohrehmhp

Zohreh Mohammadhosseinpour (b. 1989, Iran) is a London-based multidisciplinary artist and PhD researcher at UCA. Working across photography, text, video, and sound, her research-led practice explores archives, memory, identity, displacement, and the body as a living archive. Combining conceptual and documentary approaches, she examines personal narratives within political contexts, particularly connected to the Middle East.

Maria Gulina @openeyegallery

Maria Gulina is a writer, activist, and producer from Belarus, based in Liverpool. In 2011-21, she worked with environmental, cultural, and queer feminist organisations in Belarus. She now is now Communications and Content Producer at Open Eye Gallery, focusing on socially engaged photography. Maria roots her practice in eco-art philosophy, looking at the meaningful relationships we can foster with places.

SPEAKER REVEAL (third announcement)

Oliver Basciano @olibasciano

Oliver Basciano is a journalist and critic based in London and Minas Gerais. His first book Outcast won the RSL Giles St Aubyn Award for Non-Fiction. He is editor-at-large at ArtReview, and his work has appeared in The Guardian, Financial Times, Telegraph, Times Literary Supplement, White Review and e-flux Criticism.

Lizzie King @lizziekingartist

Lizzie King is an artist with an expanded practice of photography and sound exploring place and relationship between the human and the more-than-human. Her work looks at how we might co-create with other species, looking to better understand the eco-system we are apart of. King also works with communities and educational institutions focusing on nature and sustainable practice.

Nicky Riding @art52jump

Nicky Riding is an Artist, Researcher and PhD Candidate at the University of Dundee. Using her own photographic work alongside those of other female artists, she is researching the Ghosting of Midlife Women in Art and Culture by interrogating the intersection of age, menopause, and gender.

SPEAKER REVEAL (fourth and fifth announcements)

Edd Carr @_eddcarr_

Edd Carr is an artist based in the UK. Adapting sustainable photographic processes into moving image - his work depicts our relationship to trauma and ecological crisis. Edd is also one of the leaders of the Sustainable Darkroom, the world’s first organisation dedicated to the research, development, and advocacy of eco-friendly alternatives to analogue and digital photography. 

Ciara Leeming @ciaraleeming

Ciara Leeming is a photographer based in Manchester who has a background in journalism. She uses socially engaged approaches to work with communities and co-produce visual stories about their lives and concerns. She currently works as a creative producer for Open Eye Gallery and is a PhD researcher at Birmingham City University, funded by Midlands 4 Cities.

Lois Barnett @lois_reflections

Lois Barnett is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Greater Manchester. Her work focuses on health and social care, documenting lived experiences that are often overlooked by mainstream media, with a particular interest in unpaid carers and the realities of care. In 2025, she completed an MA in Visual Journalism and Storytelling at the University of Greater Manchester.

Nam Huh @namjoohuh 

Nam Huh is a UK-based curator and researcher working at the intersection of media art, diasporic identity, queer and postcolonial theory. Their practice explores experimental and community-driven forms of storytelling, often involving immersive technologies, sound, and socially engaged processes. They are currently pursuing a PhD in Communications and Media, focusing on experimental documentary films.

Rhona Eve Clews @rhonaeve  

Rhona Eve Clews is a working-class, dyspraxic artist and healer who takes herself on 'absurd, determined, light-sensitive quests.' Her eco-embodied practice is rooted in the poetry and physicality of darkrooms, treating film and emulsion as companion bodies. She holds an MFA with Distinction from the Slade School of Fine Art (UCL) and a Diploma in Environmental Humanities. 

Accessibility

• Need materials in alternative formats (e.g. BSL, braille)? Please do get in touch with us and we will do our best to accomodate (contact details below)

♿ Ground floor room with disabled toilets and fire exit
♿ Fully wheelchair accessible, with sufficient floor space within the room
🤫 Quiet space in foyer
💨❄️ Phew! Air-conditioned!
🛒🏪 The venue is surrounded by shops and cafes if you need supplies.

Getting Here

Google Maps directions here.

🚶‍♂️🚂 Greater Manchester Business School is a 2-minute walk from Bolton Train Station (on the same block).
🚶‍♂️🚗 2-minute walk from NCP Bolton Octagon Theatre MSCP.
🚶‍♂️🚗 12-minute walk from NCP Bolton Topp Way.
📍 what3words ///socket.fled.dull
📍 Room Y0.02 (Ground Floor), Greater Manchester Business School, University of Greater Manchester, BL1 1SW

Food

Catering will be provided! Refreshments and buffet lunch, with a drinks reception. GF and Vegan options availaible.

Greater Manchester Business School is also surrounded by shops and cafes if you should wish to purchase your own food and drink.

EVENT TIMES

Please note, we have moved the event back a bit to allow for attendees' commute: 09:45-10:30am registration, welcome speech at 10:30am. Drinks reception 4pm, and event finishes at 5pm.

Acknowledgments

‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other: A Photography Conference’ is co-convened by Laura Robertson, Roxana Allison-Eguiluz and Professor Jill Marsden, on behalf of the BA Photography programme at the University of Greater Manchester, Bolton, and made possible by funding from the Jenkinson Awards Scheme 2026 and the Ryley Research Internship Scheme, with many thanks.

This conference expands upon a panel discussion of the same name, chaired by Dame Marina Warner and readings by MA Writing students Fiona Glen, Hattie Gibson, Laura Robertson and Yin Ying Kong, Royal College of Art, London. Originally broadcast on Twitch, Thursday 30 July 2020, it formed part of the MA Writing Royal College of Art degree show programme #RCA2020

Committee Biographies

Laura Robertson is a working-class art critic, writer, and Lecturer in Photography Theory at the University of Greater Manchester. She is currently working on two horror-led books: Alive~Asleep, on night terrors, grief and contemporary culture, will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2026; and NIGHT, on art after dark, will be released by Tate Publishing in 2027. She has bylines in the world’s top magazines and newspapers, including Art Monthly, ArtReview, and frieze, and is a guest critic on BBC Radio Four’s Front Row.

Roxana Allison-Eguiluz is a Mexican-British photographer who works as a Photography Technical Officer at the University of Greater Manchester. Her photographic practice is shaped by her lived experience of migration and bicultural upbringing which focuses on themes of place, belonging and community. Among the institutions Roxana has collaborated with are Waterside Gallery, Impressions Gallery, Open Eye Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, HOME, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Manchester City Council, and she is a member of Foto Féminas. Roxana is a winner of the British Journal of Photography Portrait of Britain Award (Vol. 6)

Jill Marsden is Professor of Literature and Philosophy at the University of Greater Manchester. She has written on feminism and the body in a range of different publications including Women’s Philosophy Review, Women: A Cultural Review, Radical Philosophy, The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Cyberpsychosis (1999), Gender in Flux (2004) and The Missing Mother (2024).

Contact

For more information, please email Laura Robertson, Lecturer in Photography Theory. Please use the subject heading ‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other’: L.Pinnington@greatermanchester.ac.uk