Long Exposures - Kim Coleman

Kim Coleman's new expanded photography installation for R-Space was developed from interviews the artist conducted with women in their late seventies who had experienced a major European blackout in 2025. These conversations became generative material for this new body of work, 'I began thinking of the women I spoke with as sensory archives: people who have lived through mass electrification and ecological transformation, and the steady brightening of night. Their accounts hold both a collective history and each woman's individual experience.'

The installation presents light and sound alongside new large-scale photograms made in the artist's flat, where photographic paper was placed beneath elements of the home that connect to wider infrastructures (internet cabling, routers, power cords, radiator pipes) and exposed to available domestic light (LEDs in sockets and routers, a mobile phone torch); in some instances, the subject exposing its own image.

Kim Coleman was born in Lisburn and lives in London. Her exhibitions, public commissions, and site-specific works have been presented at Nottingham Contemporary; Tom of Finland House, Los Angeles; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Frieze Projects for Frieze London (with Jenny Hogarth); the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (with Jenny Hogarth); Tate St Ives (with Susie Green); Granary Square, King's Cross, London; and MS Dockville, Hamburg. Recent projects include Night Walk at Orleans House, London, and Darkness in Urban Space for Richmond Council (with Harun Morrison).

About the artist

Kim Coleman works with analogy photography and colour photograms (cameraless photographs created by exposing photographic paper to light in total darkness) hold a significant place in the artist’s practice, as she explores how these chance-based compositions can poetically speak to societal dynamics and interpersonal relationships in ways beyond the reach of standard photography.