Living Pictures

Living Pictures

Ella Sadie Guthrie, Phyllipa Scammell & Tom Lovelace

Living Pictures is an evening of poetry, music and dance that reimagines how we encounter the photographic image. Inspired by the research of artist Tom Lovelace, the event explores how photography can be “opened” through live, performative approaches - shifting it from a fixed object into an active and unstable material. 

From its earliest days, photography has existed in conversation not only with poetry, but with sound, movement and performance. In these crossings, images gain new rhythms, new meanings, and new emotional registers. Today, this expanded field is gaining renewed momentum, as artists work across disciplines to test what a photograph can be within .

Presented in collaboration with Photoworks and aligned with their P5 Photo-Poetry Pamphlet Series, Living Pictures brings together three acclaimed artists - Ella Sadie Guthrie, Phyllipa Scammell & Tom Lovelace - exploring these intersections through spoken word, music and movement.

Phyllipa Scammell is a UK-born musician who began playing cello at four and gave her first BBC-recorded concert at five. A scholarship to the Royal College of Music led to international touring, before a chance encounter with street jazz in Covent Garden shifted her path. She later took up double bass, performing across Europe with groups including Bats Swing. Now based in France, her work draws on musette, jazz and folk traditions. 

Ella Sadie Guthrie is a writer who often fails at being funny. After studying her NCTJ she moved into spoken word, going on to perform at an array of London poetry nights and the House of Commons. In 2019 she co-founded WRIOT, a poetry collective for womxn and non-binary poets. You can hear her talk about poetry and music every Wednesday on Trickstar Radio, but mostly she spends her time walking along Brighton seafront and daydreaming.

Tom Lovelace is a London based artist, working across photography and performance. Lovelace’s practice is shaped by the collaborative histories of photography, phenomenology, theatre and the languages and legacies of abstraction. Since 2017, Lovelace has been developing the Living Pictures; presenting interactive exhibition spaces, exploring sites of architecture, moments in art history and the photographic image. Lovelace is currently completing doctoral research at the University of Westminster. As a Lecturer he works at the Royal College of Art, London. 

At its core Living Pictures is an invitation to move beyond passive viewing and into a more dynamic encounter with images. Expect moments of interruption, resonance and surprise, where photographs are not simply seen, but experienced!

After the three interactive performances, Phyll will swap her cello for a double bass and bestow us with some live jazz & French chanson... bring your dancing feet!