Sophie Mak-Schram and Leah McLaine are the successful recipients of our open call Tessa Boffin: Where We Touch the Archive
Inspired by the work of Tessa Boffin – lesbian photographer, activist, writer, educator and performance artist – Sophie Mak-Schram and Leah McLaine will spend time working within Boffin’s archive to inform new artistic responses. The resulting work will form part of a national touring exhibition, launching in Eastbourne this summer before travelling to Nottingham, Brighton and Portsmouth.
Leah McLaine is a British Malaysian photographer who works in black and white 35mm and 120 film, and the darkroom. Growing up strictly religious, her orthodox jewish background became incongruous with her sexual identity, and after attempts to change, she became estranged. She now works to document her life, found family and relationships, finding many of her queer friends also estranged, or no longer having family members to document their lives. She uses portraiture as a form of attention, care and prayer; a way of keeping the nearest and dearest near and dear.
Sophie Mak-Schram is an artist working across art, art historical research and radical pedagogies. They engage others in place-specific work around power, collectivity, knowledges and futures. This work is informed by personal and shared experiences of cultural difference, coloniality, race and gender. Often using the metaphor of the ‘tool’ – as a poetic and practical object – Sophie works with collaborators to make tools that can shift power, gather groups and offer ways of being in relation (to each other, to place, to institutions) differently.
The panel were Jazz Swali (Backlit), Charan Singh (The estate of Tessa Boffin/The Gupta+Singh Archives), Polly Wright (Curator, Devonshire Collective), Ricardo Reverón Blanco (independent curator and former Curator at Aspex Portsmouth), and Danit Ariel (Photoworks).
A touring exhibition project co-commissioned by Devonshire Collective, Aspex Portsmouth, BACKLIT and Photoworks. Supported by Jenni Crain Foundation, an initiative dedicated to preserving the legacy of the esteemed artist and curator; The National Archives and Arts Council England. With thanks to The estate of Tessa Boffin/The Gupta+Singh Archives and Hales, London and New York and University for the Creative Arts Special Collections.
