Aware that here we are setting up the new show at Studio 75 while just next week, the big behemoth of Frieze will get underway. What a contrast! Here we are with no money and no power and no fabulously rich clients … and not any great hope of getting any of that. London is really a b*tch. Where else can you get it shoved in your face like that? New York probably, maybe Moscow these days. Ugh. How often I feel like leaving this monstrous megalopolis, the place William Cobbett famously called the Great Wen (boil). De Quincey noted that “the outside air and framework of London society is harsh, cruel and repulsive.” I’m aware that I’m writing this as very sour grapes indeed, given that I am lucky enough to have a great studio, and fantastic studio partners and wonderful artists to work with. And so.

The new show, Rivers is a photography show that’s happening as part of Photomonth. It’s the first show in the studio to feature substantially my work – I am showing with Catia Ott another film-maker/photographer. I realised I’ve spent nine months in the studio and shown barely any of my own work… I have tons of photography that has been shown in bits and bobs in all kinds of shows (usually mixed group shows), but I have never focused my attention on photographic exhibitions. Photos have always been the fall-back when there is no scope for full scope moving image installation (which is fairly often, actually, the problem is that it’s not been a systematic approach to photographic exhibition). Now I see that this is wrong. I’ve been in love with and doing photography since I was a teen. Catia has been the driving force here: she has looked at my photography portfolio and identified several key projects that cry out for a proper and full exhibition.