Then There Was Us

17/11/2022

Los Angeles based Shania Taint is a rare find in the world of music. A producer who’s Bandcamp showcases an introduction to his rich abilities, including a techno track full to the brim with acid, and his most recent release 'touncan flam', which takes you on a journey as if you’re driving a lowrider through the West Coast of California.

Los Angeles based Shania Taint is a rare find in the world of music. A producer who’s Bandcamp showcases an introduction to his rich abilities, including a techno track full to the brim with acid, and his most recent release touncan flam, which takes you on a journey as if you’re driving a lowri...

23/10/2022

NoSo is the stage name of Korean-American singer-songwriter Baek Hwong. The non-binary artist’s debut album Stay Proud of Me explores themes surrounding queerness, gender and identity, through its use of confessional and delicate lyricism paired with guitars and the occasional 80s synth.

NoSo is the stage name of Korean-American singer-songwriter Baek Hwong. The non-binary artist’s debut album Stay Proud of Me explores themes surrounding queerness, gender and identity, through its use of confessional and delicate lyricism paired with guitars and the occasional 80s synth. Whilst or...

03/09/2022

The work of South-London and Somerset based artist Tim Garwood is an eccentric mix of colour and any household materials he deems worthy.

01/09/2022

Museum of Youth Culture is a non-profit Heritage Lottery & Arts Council funded archive, which preserves the cultural legacies of young people over the past 100 years in Britain through photographs, objects and oral histories...

The Museum of Youth Culture has a collection of imagery spanning across 100 years is a non-profit Heritage Lottery & Arts Council funded archive, which preserves the cultural legacies of young people over the past 100 years in Britain through photographs, objects and oral histories. The collection f...

01/09/2022

For our Playlist series we ask artists to handpick a selection of music that has inspired them throughout their journey. We intend to investigate the link between artists and music by investigating the motivations and justifications for the songs they choose. For the inaugural instalment of our Playlist series, we invited Jordan Nash to stop by our studio and choose some songs that have inspired him.

For our *Playlist* series we ask artists to handpick a selection of music that has inspired them throughout their journey. We intend to investigate the link between artists and music by investigating the motivations and justifications for the songs they choose. For the inaugural instalment of our Pl...

13/05/2022

Depth of Field is a 10-week creative programme giving 10 16-25 year olds unprecedented access to some of the world’s leading sporting and cultural moments.

Apply here:
https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/projects/depth-of-field

Depth of Field is a summer-long programme for aspiring photographers aged 16-25 to get access to professional mentorship and unmissable experiences. Apply here.

03/05/2022

Look all around you and take a deep breath, take in all your surroundings and view the world in the same way Mon Levchenkova does. Everything is silent, everything is still...

Look all around you and take a deep breath, take in all your surroundings and view the world in the same way Mon Levchenkova does. Everything is silent, everything is still. From the nostalgic childhood feelings that unite the sense of play, to the rich tones that grace our eyes on the concrete bloc...

02/05/2022

James Tailor’s First Solo Exhibition in London is Launching at the Sarabande Foundation.

https://www.thentherewasus.co.uk/archive/james-tailors-first-solo-exhibition-in-london-is-launching-at-the-sarabande-foundation

For his first solo exhibition in London at the Sarabande Foundation, and in advocacy of Mental Health Awareness Week, artist James Tailor presents paintings and sculptures that communicate feelings of frustration and anxiety – of being almost too overwhelmed to continue.

01/05/2022

Houses are commodities, homes are souls. Gwendraeth House is the umbrella title of an on-going, 30-year long photographic project that divines and pictures interior and exterior spaces of Peter Finnemore’s family home in Wales.

Featured in the Family Issue [03], we have found the last remaining copies and uploaded them to our store. Read the full interview online now or buy a copy from our store.

26/04/2022

As we witness a war in Ukraine that has been raging for over 60 days, the ongoing Russian escalation has altered the history of the region and the world has witnessed the full and harrowing lengths Vladimir Putin and his military forces are willing to go to in Ukraine to secure a victory for the Russian Federation. The Russian invasion and resulting destruction of various large and smaller settlements around the country have led to 5.2 million Ukrainians fleeing the country.

Ukrainian photographer, and his family have been surviving the Russian Invasion in the Kyiv region. In this conversation between him and photographer , the discussion aims to provide content and a personal experience of the harrowing situation from someone trapped in the middle of the conflict.

Read more online and see how you can help support

22/04/2022

When we understand that the earth is a living system, we dissolve our separation from the planet — we are the earth, and the earth is us — and whilst we are here on this planet we strive to protect her, as we are her.

Ways of Living is a project we created with to celebrate the creativity within climate change. To spread a message and to remind an audience that the earth is all we have.

Take this day to appreciate the world around you. If you’re at a screen then head over to our Ways of Living project and see all the beauty that surrounds us. Happy Earth Day.

19/04/2022

Allday () is a deeply inspiring project solving plastic waste through kitchen knives. Founded in 2020, by Hugo Worsley, the project see’s plastic waste being turned into beautifully crafted knives that are designed and created as a product for life. Whilst more companies are moving towards greener solutions and recycling methods, plastic production is still set to double by 2050. A worrying issue for the future of our planet.

Read about our studio visit with Allday on thentherewasus.co.uk.

07/04/2022

07/04/2022

Council estates are social housing projects which ignite an array of different communities across Britain. The fabric of life in British culture and often intelligent architecture that still weaves itself into modern day projects. My Yard is a documentation of the last remaining months on a British council estate in South Harrow, London.

https://www.thentherewasus.co.uk/archive/my-yard-captures-the-last-remaining-moments-on-a-london-council-estate

07/04/2022

Allday () is a deeply inspiring project solving plastic waste through kitchen knives. Founded in 2020, by Hugo Worsley, the project see’s plastic waste being turned into beautifully crafted knives that are designed and created as a product for life. Whilst more companies are moving towards greener solutions and recycling methods, plastic production is still set to double by 2050. A worrying issue for the future of our planet.

Read about our studio visit with Allday on thentherewasus.co.uk

06/04/2022

Allday is a deeply inspiring project solving plastic waste through kitchen knives. Founded in 2020, by Hugo Worsley, the project see’s plastic waste being turned into beautifully crafted knives that are designed and created as a product for life. Whilst more companies are moving towards greener solutions and recycling methods, plastic production is still set to double by 2050. A worrying issue for the future of our planet.

Read about our studio visit with Allday on thentherewasus.co.uk.

31/01/2022

In our latest collaboration with Open Eye Gallery (), we bring you Ways of Living, an online archive that focuses on projects surrounding the relationships between (creatives and the climate crisis). Exhibited in Look Climate Lab 2022, this interactive archive will feature in the gallery space until March 20th.

Head over to the link in our bio to see the live project.

Cover image - Ebrahim Bahaa-Eldin
1. Sem Langendijk
2. Nikki Culley
3. Meg Tall
4. Jake Eshelman
5. Kush Kukreja

Thanks to everyone involved in this project.
(Phase two coming soon).

31/01/2022

In our latest collaboration with Open Eye Gallery, we bring you Ways of Living, an online archive that focuses on projects surrounding the relationships between (creatives and the climate crisis). Exhibited in Look Climate Lab 2022, this interactive archive will feature in the gallery space until March 20th.

Head over to the link in our bio to see the live project.

Cover image - Ebrahim Bahaa-Eldin
1. Sem Langendijk
2. Nikki Culley
3. Meg Tall
4. Jake Eshelman
5. Kush Kukreja

Thanks to everyone involved in this project.

(Phase two coming soon).

24/12/2021

Have your work exhibited in as part of collaboration with then there was us x Open Eye Gallery.

The themes surrounding this open call are very broad and therefore if you have some work that’s related in anyway then we’d love for you to submit.

Be part of an online archive that focuses on conversations and projects surrounding the relationships between (creatives and the climate crisis) in 2022.

Link in bio

21/12/2021

Today we’re looking back at the launch of our World Cup Project that we launched in 2018. One of the first main publishing projects that we worked on and saw an overwhelming amount of submissions come in from photographers all of the world.

As we go into the year of the World Cup again, we look back onto some images from this project, whilst planning our open call and book ahead of a relaunch this summer.

In the New Year if you support then there was us then you’ll have the chance to see a collection of books in our digital archive. More coming in the New Year.

17/12/2021

This week we look back to our three printed issues to date, Contested Territories, Home & Migration and Family.

2020 – Home & Migration - Within this issue we began our exploration of the definitions, meanings and circumstances of Home & Migration. We aimed to unravel the sprawling and extensive concepts of home and in turn, the effects and consequences of migration, whatever its length, composition, complexity and cause.

In 1994, a few years on from the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine found itself with many newly independent states and with all the new independent states, this meant issuing new passports to all 50 million of its citizens.

Alexander Chekmenev was a local photographer, living and working within the city in a local photo studio. It was here when he was asked by an official if he’d like to take the role of official passport photographer. It would be his job to go round and take photographs for the elderly and disabled that couldn’t leave their houses in order to do this themselves.

Over the next year, Alexander would travel around rural Luhansk, visiting dated cabins that were erected hastily in the late 19th century and never further maintained. His work would involve going into people’s houses, setting up his portable backdrop and taking their portrait.

All then there was us supporters receive all of our digital issues. Sign up to support the project online - thentherewasus.co.uk

13/12/2021

This week we look back to our three printed issues to date, Contested Territories, Home & Migration and Family.

2020 – Contested Territories, a notion that focuses on the production and appropriation of space and knowledge in and through often overlapping cultural, economic, environmental, political and spatial conflicts occurring at multiple sites, places and scales.

Andrew Moore - Troubles.

His first visit to Belfast in 1986, Andrew Moore would return repeatedly until 1998, the year of the Good Friday Agreement. In his early 20s Moore had begun to document the social unrest in England triggered by the Thatcher government. As a fairly inexperienced photographer, Moore would go on to continue this theme, documenting and recording a period characterised by a long slow grind of hidden sectarian killing, political tension and endless funerals.

Featured in our first issue, Andrew Moore’s work sat alongside side photography and writing from Dan Wood, Joshua Sneade, Andrew Moore, Stewart Weir, Gemma Eacott, Roz Doherty, Tristan Poyser, Joe Preston, Dhruv Mehrotra and Wes Foster.

This issue can still be read online by supporting then there was us. Head over to the website to find out how to join up.

10/12/2021

As we’ve seen AND grow in recent years, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the times gone by. This year we had over seven hundred submissions in our inbox. A competition which welcomes submissions from photographers from all over the world. With images sent over from Nigeria to New York, from England to Australia, we thoroughly enjoyed curating them down to the final fifty one. Whilst the number fifty one has no significance to us, this year it’s the number that felt right. Every image in the book complements the other and that’s our only aim for AND. Today we look back onto images we’ve featured in the third edition of AND.

09/12/2021

This week we’re looking back at our yearly project AND. Started in 2019 with the aim of breaking down the conventional play-to-play model, AND has been central to us being surrounded by a whole network of incredible photographers. A free to enter competition that enables photographers from all walks of life to enter their work which is then carefully considered by our Editors and then curated and printed into our yearly annual.

Yesterday and today we look back at AND 2020 and the photographers who featured in the 2020 annual.

08/12/2021

This week we’re looking back at our yearly project AND. Started in 2019 with the aim of breaking down the conventional play-to-play model, AND has been central to us being surrounded by a whole network of incredible photographers. A free to enter competition that enables photographers from all walks of life to enter their work which is then carefully considered by our Editors and then curated and printed into our yearly annual.

Today and tomorrow we look back at AND 2020 and the photographers who featured in the 2020 annual.

07/12/2021

Looking back at AND 2019, today we look over the first artists that we had the pleasure of featuring in our first yearly annual. Out of the 500 submissions that were received, we curated the work down to a manageable 60 photographers.