At the eighth edition of Photo London, at Somerset House from 10-14 May 2023, Ed Cross is delighted to present work by Leah Gordon (b. 1959, Port Ellesmere, UK) and Mário Macilau (b. 1984, Mozambique).
Alongside new works and highlights from her ongoing series Kanaval, documenting annual Mardi Gras celebrations over 25 years in Jacmel, Southern Haiti, Ed Cross presents all nine black-and- white photographs from Leah Gordon’s The Caste Portraits (2022). The series investigates the practice of the grading of skin colour, which classified racial mixing in 18th century colonial Haiti. By placing herself in the series – Blanche at one end, with her partner Andre Eugene at the other as Noir – Gordon questions her own relationship to and culpability in Haiti’s history.
Gordon also presents her triptych The Kingdom of This World (2014). Featuring a prophetic photographic reconstruction of William Blake’s illustration of ‘Europe Supported by Africa and the Americas’, the central image is flanked by two constructed portraits based on a John Thomas Smith illustration from his 1817 book 'Vagabondiana'. Taken as a whole, the triptych portrays the intervolved histories between the disenfranchised British working class and peasantry, the ironic complications of the British abolition movement and the complexities of the Haitian Revolution.
Ed Cross also presents work by Mário Macilau, including new images from the artist’s ongoing Faith series for which he has been awarded the Roger Pic Prize 2023. Documenting the practice of animism (the belief that everything has a soul or spirit) within traditional religions in contemporary Mozambique, Faith is presented alongside a selection of smaller, full-colour images from Macilau’s 2020 series Circle of Memories. Here, Macilau populates his photographs of abandoned colonial-era buildings with figures – often women and children – eerily intertwining with the ruined structures that surround them: in these ghostly images, Circle of Memories record traces not of dead people but defunct ideologies.
Best known for his photographic work, Macilau’s multidisciplinary practice is characterised by his unique choice of subjects and ability to connect with them. Often using portraiture as his starting point, Macilau’s practice strives to unlock broader perspectives on specific issues. For the artist, photography has the power to reveal stark truths about life, encouraging the development of a social conscience as well as awareness of difficult circumstances in Mozambique and beyond.
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Leah Gordon (born Ellesmere Port, UK, 1959) is an artist, curator, and writer. Her work explores the intervolved and intersectional histories of the Caribbean plantation system, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the Enclosure Acts and the creation of the British working-class. In the 1980s she wrote lyrics, sang, and played for a feminist folk punk band. Gordon’s film and photographic work has been exhibited internationally including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; the Dak’art Biennale; the National Portrait Gallery, UK and the Norton Museum of Art, Florida. She is the co-director of the Ghetto Biennale in Port-au- Prince, Haiti; was a curator for the Haitian Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale; was the co-curator of ‘Kafou: Haiti, History & Art’ at Nottingham Contemporary, UK; and was the co-curator of 'PÒTOPRENS: The Urban Artists of Port-au-Prince' at Pioneer Works, NYC in 2018 and MOCA, Miami in 2019. In 2022 she exhibited in and curated the Atis Rezistans | Ghetto Biennale exhibition at St Kunigundis Church at documenta fifteen, Kassel at Power Plant Gallery, Duke University, NC, USA; and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany. Kanaval showed at Ed Cross, London and at MOCA North, Miami (both 2023).
Mário Macilau (b. 1984, Mozambique) lives in Maputo, Mozambique. Selected exhibitions include: Songs of the Present, Musée de la Photographie de Saint Louis, Senegal (2018); Afrique Capitales, La Villette, Paris (2017); Pavilion of the Holy See, 56th Venice Biennale (2015); Making Africa, Vitra Museum, Weil am Rhein (2015); Discovery Show, Fotofestiwal Łódź, Poland (2015); Pangaea: Art from Africa and Latin America, Saatchi Gallery, London (2014); The African Art Auction, Bonhams, London (2013); Recontres Picha, Bienalle de Lubumbashi (2013), The Biennale Arts Actuels, Saint-Denis, Réunion (2013); Pan-African Exhibition, Recontres de Bamako: Biennale of African Photography, Mali (2011); VI Chobi Mela Photo Festival, Dhaka, Bangladesh (2011); and Lagos Photo, Nigeria (2011). Macilau has been shortlisted for the 2019 Mast Award and the was a finalist of the Unicef Photo of the Year in 2009, the Greenpeace Photo Award 2016, and is in the permanent collection of the Pompidou Centre.
Macilau is the winner of the Roger Pic prize 2023 for his series Faith, and received a special mention in the Quai Branly Museum Prize 2022. His work will feature in Tate Modern's upcoming group show A World in Common, opening summer 2023.
