Collectives Hub: Folo Collective

This exhibition is a time capsule: a collection of photographic messages made in the present and addressed to an unknown future.

Like photography, time capsules are acts of selection. They are both evidence and message, asking us to consider what of the present deserves to be carried forward, what we value, what we are afraid to lose and what we hope to convey to people we will never meet.

Rather than prescribe what this record should contain, the photographs were made intuitively through an Exquisite Corpse. Each photographer received an image and responded with one of their own, which was sent on to the next photographer. Seeing only the image immediately preceding their own, each photographer created a visual conversation in which each photograph became the prompt for the next: a collective feedback loop.

Reassembled, the images reveal connections that were neither planned nor anticipated. They move between the personal and the communal, the ordinary and the endangered. Motifs of looking, concealment, childhood and uncertainty recur across photographs made independently of one another. Questions of memory, privacy and photographic truth sit alongside intimate acts of attention and preservation.

Seen together, they form a speculative archive: a subjective record of the world as we experience it now, sent forward to an unknown future whose reading of it we cannot foretell.

Folo Collective is a group of 12 photographers who came together in 2025 following their participation in an online workshop series run by photography collective, The Emmas. After the workshops, they continued to meet online regularly to support one another on their individual projects.

Each photographer approaches the medium differently, yet all are shaped by the same environment of support and exchange. The workshops provided a framework for dialogue and development. Through collective reflection, participants were encouraged to test ideas, challenge assumptions and expand the boundaries of their practice. This was underpinned by a strong sense of trust and openness within the group, creating a space where risk-taking felt possible.

In May 2026, they put together an exhibition, ‘Traces of Us’, at St Margaret’s House in Bethnal Green, curated by Folo Collective member, Sophia Álvarez Barnes. The show became material evidence of the possibility of working together cohesively whilst honouring their individual histories, questions and ways of seeing.

Andy Fell -@andyfell
Anneleen Lindsay – @anneleenphoto
Bríd Ryan – @brid_ryan_photo
Julia Biro – @juliabiro99
Kana Holland – @kanahayada
Karina Lax – @karinalaxphoto
Luci Carnall – @carbootcache
Marysa Dowling – @marysadowling
Silvia Varela – @silviagvarela
Sophia Álvarez Barnes – @sophiaalvarezbarnes
Verity Welstead – @veritywelstead
Yolanda Crisp – @yolandacrisp

Image above: Bríd Ryan, Think Before You Take, 2016