What’s On
Explore our upcoming exhibitions, book launches, and events. Whether online or in the Gallery, our programme spans artist talks, creative workshops, screenings, and photobook showcases, bringing together photographers, enthusiasts, and fans to learn, share, and connect.
Attending Our Events
All of our events are free unless stated otherwise, we have optional RSVP for each event, but we welcome walk- ins. Paid or private events can be booked below or via the organiser.
Access
Please note our basement gallery has no step free access and 25 steps.
Lending Collections, Photobook Tour: The Lavery
We’re are proud to share our growing photobook collection with The Lavery, seeing the first of our touring collections. By presenting a selection of these unique photobooks beyond our Shoreditch space, we aim to introduce new audiences to the creativity of self- publishing. This collaboration allows the photographers and publishers we champion to connect with a wider community, broadening the conversation around self-publishing and celebrating the vibrant culture of independent photography.
We’ve carefully curated a selection of photobooks that engage with contemporary themes, from the energy of Fashion Week to striking portrayals of London’s urban landscapes. The collection highlights self-published works and small press editions alongside fashion-focused titles, city-centric projects, and landmark publications launched with us, offering a rich mix of established and emerging voices in photography and visual storytelling.
To support deeper engagement, we’ve included a QR code to our online collection, where you can find each artist so you can explore their work further and purchase their photobooks.
Our full collection can be seen at our onsite library located at 4 Leonard Circus, Shoreditch, EC2A 4DQ.
For visit enquires; The Lavery
City in Dual Exposure: Between Memory and Present an exhibition by Jiaxin Chen
Jiaxin Chen is a visual artist whose practice investigates the material ontology of photography and its shifting role in contemporary image cultures. Her work draws upon the legacies of experimental photography, process-based art, and materialist aesthetics, engaging techniques such as chemical staining (e.g. Cyanotype and Van Dyke), blocking, physical abrasion, and weaving interventions. Her exhibitions across Europe and Asia continue to evolve around questions of perceptual displacement and self-reflexivity, inviting audiences to encounter images not as passive representations but as performative events of matter, time, and transformation.
City in Dual Exposure: Between Memory and Present situates itself within the discourse of post-photographic practices and the ongoing interrogation of urban modernity. Drawing from strategies of double exposure, montage, and material intervention, it constructs a visual palimpsest that resonates with the legacies of Fluxus experimentation and the material turn in contemporary photography. The works mobilize techniques of folding, weaving, and layering to fracture the singular perspective, echoing theories of heterotopia (Foucault) and urban simultaneity (Benjamin). In these oscillations between density and void, monumental façade and fragile gesture, the city is revealed as a site of temporal disjunction and perceptual negotiation. What persists is not the stability of a city-image, but the shimmer of multiplicity — where the visible harbors the spectral, and where urban identity unfolds in the interstices of progress and remembrance. Just as memory compresses lived experience into a fragile surface of recollection, the shadow represents a form of reality that exists precisely through its elusiveness.
Social Media Handles
@jiaxi.nchen
Maria Quigley’s AUCTION FUNDRAISER PARTY!
Maria Quigley’s
AUCTION FUNDRAISER PARTY!
contributions from Gideon Mendel, Olivia Arthur, Jamie Hawesworth, Rapid Eye, Holly Birtles, Will Grundy, Heather Lawrence, Tudor Etchells, Mohamed Hassan, Andrezza Vieira, Mike Baluk, Sam Gallagher, Vidhi, Andy Clydesdale, All Good Beer and many more!
Maria Quigley was born in St Petersburg, Russia, and moved to London in 2000. She holds an MA in Documentary Photography from the University of South Wales. Using photography, reenactment, and her own cameraless darkroom techniques, her practice explores Russian heritage through a Western upbringing, investigating how media and technology shape memory, identity, and the ways history is performed. Her work has been published by The Guardian, Dazed, BBC, and Firecracker, and exhibited internationally.
Social Media Handles
@maquigley
RSVP here, optional.
NEW EXHIBITION SET TO OPEN IN LONDON THIS FALL BY ARTIST, MICHAEL PATTERSON.
A brand new, temporary photography exhibition “SNAP, CLICK, POP!”, is set to open in the heart of London’s Shoreditch neighborhood this Fall, at the Photobook Cafe, with images by New York based artist, Michael Patterson.
Photobook Cafe is a cultural hub, building a vibrant community where conversation, connection, and creativity thrive alongside diversity and acceptance. As part of their recently expanded bar and Gallery Space the Cafe has teamed up with photographer, Michael Patterson, “MP” to friends, to create a new exhibition, “SNAP, CLICK, POP!”.
Visitors will be able to see a variety of Patterson’s photography, including Four 16 x 16 Giclee Prints that showcase the spectrum of the artist’s work – City Scapes, Images from his “Bathtub Series”, Images from his self-published book “Stolen Moments,” and a collection of Fashion Images. All images are shot on Apple iPhone.
Michael Patterson is a Photographer, Stylist, and Artist based in New York City. As a muse to the late, Jean Michel Basquiat, Patterson is the only living man in art history to have been painted multiple times by the artist. A true legend in the New York fashion, culture, and nightlife scenes Patterson’s photography work explores his intimate connection with his city and the unique fleeting moments of strangers in the wild. Patterson has had previous Gallery Shows at the Cheryl Hazan Gallery, The Fire Island Hotel Gallery Show, Village Works Solo Show, and Good Head Salon, among others.
He said of the new exhibition: “Using my phone allows me to catch moments immediately – I’m always looking for the possibilities”.
Residence Journal Launch & Exhibition
@antonia.lucas and @bearmoody_ are launching a new photography journal and exhibition ‘Residence’ on the 7th of November at Photobook Cafe in Shoreditch.
Residence Journal aims to be a supportive platform for emerging photographers. We look at fashion and documentary photography with a particular focus on portraiture.
The journal is an introduction to the artists through personal interviews and visual storytelling. It’s a snapshot of their experiences, stylistic choices, fears and hopes for the future. Wrestling with an uncertain industry, financial challenges and the rise of AI the journal covers a lot of ground and documents our talented friends’ work.
We look forward to seeing you there! ♥️
(Residence Journal will be available to purchase at the event).
Social Media Handles
@bearmoody_ @antonia.lucas @residencejournal
Book Launch: Painters Tools' by Sarah Larby
Painters’ Tools is a paperback photobook that explores the hidden labour of creativity through an intimate study of artists and the tools they use. It is a typological series of close-up images of the objects of making – brushes, chisels, pigments, palettes etc. The work highlights the quiet beauty of everyday materials and the often-overlooked relationship between maker and tool.
Across 200 pages, the book reflects on the intimacy of studio practice, revealing how tools become extensions of the artist’s hand. At the back of the book you will find a small essay about the project by Sarah Larby and portraits to showcase the artists involved in the project.
Sarah Larby (b.1998, Northumberland) is a visual artist and fine art photographer based in London. With a background in painting and sculpture, she completed her BA in Fine Art at the University of Leeds in 2020, studied classical sculpture at the Akademia Stuck Pieknych in Warsaw, and received her MA in Commercial Photography from the London College of Communication, UAL, in 2024.
Social Media Handles
@sarah.larby.photo @cachius
"Parallel 42" Publication launch
GLUH is a publication and culture platform exploring belonging through different formats and projects.
Its second edition, "Parallel 42", brings together 11 artists whose stories, practices, and roots are tied to an area of the world along the 42nd parallel north. Exploring a new landscape of artists connected to this region, the publication looks at how memory, change, and distance shape creative work. From Milko Boyarov, Slavadelic, and Aaron Roth to Harita Asumani, this issue presents a new aesthetic and a wave of artists who bring their own backgrounds and stories of change into art, music, design, and jewellery.
Curated and published by GLUH / Sabina Plamenova.
Social Media Handles
@gluh.world @chicho_ti_rondo @mojogoro108 @milko_boyarov @geee_nao @lilia.toncheva.orourke @nevabalnikova @h_asumani @slavadelic @dena_ftb @jennyiivanova @thatonesabina
Book Launch: Wanderer By Luca Bailey
Luca Bailey is a multidisciplinary artist working across visual art, photography, moving image and sound. His practice drifts between mediums, exploring the boundaries between documentation and introspection.
Bailey’s photographic work often focuses on narratives of journeying, both physical and emotional, reflecting on themes of memory, time and the instability of place. Many of his prints are produced through Xerox and other reprographic processes, embracing imperfection and repetition as integral to meaning.
He views the photograph not as a sacred or untouchable object, but as a mutable file, something to be reworked, copied, degraded and reimagined. This attitude speaks to a broader concern in his practice: how images survive, erode and transform as they move through time and technology.
Bailey’s aesthetic and conceptual sensibilities are heavily informed by the Provoke movement of post-war Japan, whose artists sought to challenge the notion of photographic truth through raw, grainy and gestural imagery. Like them, Bailey treats the photograph as an act of perception rather than documentation, a fragment of experience charged with ambiguity and emotion.
He also draws inspiration from Duane Michals, particularly his reflection: “It is a melancholy truth that I will never be able to photograph reality and can only fail. I am a reflection photographing other reflections within a reflection. To photograph reality is to photograph nothing.” This sense of futility runs throughout Bailey’s work.
Originally from Birmingham, UK, he now lives and works in London. His debut monograph, Wanderer, will be released in 2025, marking the culmination of several years of photographic experimentation.
Project statement For Wanderer
Wanderer is a photographic series born from a period of emotional dislocation, a time when walking became less about joy and more about searching for something lost. Created during two separate periods in Japan, the work began unintentionally. The images emerged from long, aimless walks that became quiet acts of escape and reflection in the midst of growing personal tribulations.
What began as purposeless movement gradually revealed itself as a deeper search: for belonging, for stillness, for a sense of home - for all the things that felt missing.
During these solitary walks, one recurring figure kept reappearing: a lone raven. It crossed my path again and again, like a shadow or a witness,. At the time, I often found myself daydreaming about seeing the world from another perspective. Much of my view was from above, through the window five floors up, from the balcony overlooking the trees in the park.
In Japanese postwar photographic culture, the raven holds layered symbolism: a messenger, a mystery. The Japanese term for “wanderer” (旅烏) can also be interpreted as “bird of passage,” a phrase that seemed to describe both the raven and myself, two separate beings drifting through the same landscapes, unseen and searching.
This book is about that search, a quiet journey shaped by absence, longing, and the effort to see through another’s eyes.
Social Media Handles
@luca_c_bailey @tiedoverpress @emi.taka.hasi
Book Launch: Ballad of the Olive Trees
Ballad of the Olive Trees functions as a proposal and investigatory work into contemporary themes of post-conflict memory and the multi-faceted influences that the memory might succumb to. It follows the stories of former war prisoners and individuals who lost family members during the Cyprus 1974 invasion. The work questions the scale at which a local history is blown out of its contexts and how it becomes disembodied to fit selective narratives of socio-political interests. It explores the ways in which traumatic memories form narratives and how they are distributed upon their distinction from organic memories.
The project’s processes scrutinise the processes of elimination memories suffer when infused into institutionalised spheres of collective memories. The work is a continuation of the artist’s greater practise, investigating the intersection of memory, history and trauma in the aftermath of the Cypriot conflict. A series of previous projects examine themes related to traces of conflict on childhood memories and the Cypriot landscape, and the social status of Turkish-Cypriots in South Cyprus. Ballad of the Olive Trees harvests nature as a symbol of prevalence and perseverance, beyond bordering practises and against segregation and cultural division.
Alexis Andreou (born Limassol 1995) is a documentary photographer, curator, and visual artist who studied MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography and BA (Hons) Photography in the London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. He experiments with a wide range of photographic genres, both in analogue and digital photography and his work mainly focuses on the visual documentation and investigation of sociopolitical affairs and their impact on contemporary society through the changing landscape.
Andreou’s current work is focusing on conducting a visual investigation on the aftermath of the Cypriot conflict events between 1964 and 1974, exploring how memory is recollected when oppressed by trauma in a bordered landscape alongside the impact that a four decade long cultural segregation has had upon displaced families and the identity of the island.
His previous work and experience has focused on experimenting with darkroom techniques and experimental photography alongside architectural photography and documentary work. Andreou’s current practise started after conducting theoretical research in war as archival image and its semiotic translation, and how documented imagery registers experienced violence and hardship in 2014.
Andreou’s practise has expanded in the curatorial sector in the last few years, having curated exhibitions at the London College of Communication and at the FUJIFILM House of Photography in 2023.
Social Media Handles
www.andreoualexis.com
@alexisandreou
Made possible by the support of Maria Artool from International Body of Art
Pip Jukes: ‘Lost + Found’ Solo Exhibition
Pip Jukes is a self-taught photographer and creative director, who delves into the art of visual storytelling, exploring themes of identity, vulnerability, memory and transformation through a female gaze. Pip’s work invites her audience to engage with the narratives behind each photograph, often reflecting personal experiences and universal truths. By embracing the rawness of human emotions, she crafts compelling visual tales, encouraging introspection and connection. Pip’s latest project ‘Lost and Found’ brings together her photography, props and a short film (starring herself), to explore what it means to lose and rediscover oneself through image-making.
Social Media Handles
@pipjukesstudios
Mini Zine Club
Join us for a relaxed drop-in Mini Zine Workshop at the Photobook Café! Explore the art of DIY publishing using Shrimp Zine Technology in our gallery space. Whether you're a zine newbie or a seasoned self-publisher, come create your own black-and-white mini zine (A5 or smaller).
No booking required — just drop in!
Only pay for what you print at the bar!
Come experiment, fold, cut, copy, and share your voice in zine form. All materials provided — just bring your ideas!
PBC Reading Room: Photobook Collection Contributions
Discover Fresh Photobook Narratives
Step into the cozy retreat of the Photobook Café’s Reading Room, where each visit brings fresh discovery. We're delighted to present the latest submissions to our ever-growing photobook collection, featuring personal photo narratives, insightful zines, rare self-published volumes, and curator-selected works that redefine visual storytelling.
Why Visit Us?
New Releases on Display - Whether you're browsing creative storytelling, documentary photography, or experimental layouts, you’ll always find something distinctive and compelling.
Browse & Immerse – The reading room is freely accessible during café hours. No booking required, just drop in and leaf through our growing collection at your leisure photobookcafe+1photobookcafe-archive.co.uk.
Curated for Creativity – We thoughtfully categorize each new submission using Omeka, ensuring easy browsing and discovery of emerging photographers and artists.
Inclusive Community Spotlight – From personal passion projects to boundary-pushing self-publishing experiments, our photobook collection champions voices often overlooked by mainstream platforms.
Want more? Our Monthly Photobook Displays
Photobook Displays – Every month, we spotlight new entries with curated showcases in our cafe.
What's In The Collection – Delve deeper into the stories behind the pages, featuring what’s in the collection reels by our team.
It’s not too late to be a part of it yourself, head to our photobook collection page to find out how to submit your photobook now!
Heads of a Family
Heads of a Family is a collaborative project that reimagines the family archive through their Ivorian and Indian diasporic lenses. Drawing from inherited photographs, the work explores memory, migration, identity, and lineage while questioning who is remembered and how stories are preserved.
Through collage, layering, manipulation, and restaging, the artists reclaim narratives long shaped by colonial legacies and displacement. The notion of the “head of the family” is redefined, shifting focus from patriarchal authority to maternal, symbolic, and often invisible leadership. The result is a reimagined family album of resistance, continuity, and connection.
Social media handles
https://www.instagram.com/chanslensesx/?locale=fr_CA. https://www.instagram.com/yvann_zahui/
Huck 82: The Music Issue Launch Party
We’re throwing a party to celebrate the release of Huck 82, and you’re invited. Pop by the Photobook Cafe in East London to celebrate independent media IRL with an evening of music, drinks and conversation.
We’ll be joined by our cover star, rapper and multidisciplinary artist Kojey Radical and High-Vis frontman Graham Sayle for a special Q&A that dives into the ideas behind the issue. There’ll also be DJs spinning into the evening and fresh copies of Huck 82 ready to take home.
It’s all happening on October 22 from 6-10pm. Swing by after work, raise a glass with us, and help welcome Huck 82 into the world the best way we know how: with good people, good music and great stories.
Zine Club
Turn your London snaps into a handmade zine!
Join us for our next Zine Workshop led by a pro photographer + bookmaker @felixfalckn
What to expect:
-Choose your favourite photos
-Print and design your own paper keepsake
-Trim, fold, and staple your zine by hand
-Enjoy a drink while you create in a cozy creative space
_
Please note our basement gallery has no step free access and 25 steps.
1 Zine included with your ticket
The Photobook Cafe Zine Reading Room
ZINE POP‑UP READING ROOM
Welcome to our Zine Pop‑Up Reading Room.
What’s Happening:
On the days of our zine workshops, we transform our basement gallery into a vibrant zine reading room. Seeing a selection of curated titles from our onsite collection. Admission is free and open to all. Come by to browse, flip through, and get inspired by a curated selection of independent zines.
Zine Workshops (6 PM – 8 PM):
After exploring the reading room, join our hands-on zine-making workshop. Whether you're new to zines or a seasoned maker, booking is required to secure your spot.
PBC Reading Room: Photobook Collection Contributions
Discover Fresh Photobook Narratives
Step into the cozy retreat of the Photobook Café’s Reading Room, where each visit brings fresh discovery. We're delighted to present the latest submissions to our ever-growing photobook collection, featuring personal photo narratives, insightful zines, rare self-published volumes, and curator-selected works that redefine visual storytelling.
Why Visit Us?
New Releases on Display - Whether you're browsing creative storytelling, documentary photography, or experimental layouts, you’ll always find something distinctive and compelling.
Browse & Immerse – The reading room is freely accessible during café hours. No booking required, just drop in and leaf through our growing collection at your leisure photobookcafe+1photobookcafe-archive.co.uk.
Curated for Creativity – We thoughtfully categorize each new submission using Omeka, ensuring easy browsing and discovery of emerging photographers and artists.
Inclusive Community Spotlight – From personal passion projects to boundary-pushing self-publishing experiments, our photobook collection champions voices often overlooked by mainstream platforms.
Want more? Our Monthly Photobook Displays
Photobook Displays – Every month, we spotlight new entries with curated showcases in our cafe.
What's In The Collection – Delve deeper into the stories behind the pages, featuring what’s in the collection reels by our team.
It’s not too late to be a part of it yourself, head to our photobook collection page to find out how to submit your photobook now!
Partners Zine Launch and Exhibition
Partners Zine is a small print publishing creative collaborations between writers and artists. Each edition showcases work from a range of poets and writers, with illustrators contributing their interpretations of these works. The zine was launched to encourage emerging writers and artists to forge new creative relationships, with the exhibition showcasing their work, offering a chance to meet and socialise.
Social Media Handles
@partnerszine
Girls On The Croft by Ruby Harris
Ruby Harris is a London-based filmmaker and photographer, born and raised in rural Aotearoa (New Zealand). Working across photography, film, and writing, she tells stories that are alive with curiosity, energy, and a love for people and places.
She brings presence and attention to every story, finding the beauty and expanding it into something bold, intimate, and alive. Girls on the Croft was made during my two weeks living on a Shetland croft, reconnecting with my ancestors and my inner 12-year-old horse girl. This show captures some of that experience: milking goats, riding ponies, meeting distant family, and swimming in the freezing North Sea.
Social Media Handles
@rubyrubyharris
Book Launch: accord magazine
accord magazine - inaugural issue launch event accord is a biannual publication that examines cross- disciplinary creative practices and is devoted to the moments that ignite creativity. Bringing together emerging talents, accord explores how different mediums and approaches converge and diverge — finding harmony, dissonance, and rhythm along the way. The publication sheds light not only on the works artists bring into being, but also on the sparks, pauses, and everyday encounters that shape them. Through intimate conversations and glimpses into artists’ private worlds of unseen thoughts and gestures, accord offers a passage into the invisible musicality that lies within creation.
*RSVP not required, limited copies available on the day
Social Media Handles
@accord.magazine
Zine Club
Turn your London snaps into a handmade zine!
Join us for our next Zine Workshop led by a pro photographer + bookmaker @felixfalckn
What to expect:
-Choose your favourite photos
-Print and design your own paper keepsake
-Trim, fold, and staple your zine by hand
-Enjoy a drink while you create in a cozy creative space
_
Please note our basement gallery has no step free access and 25 steps.
1 Zine included with your ticket
The Independent Photographer 2025 Exhibition - London
The Independent Photographer is a leading online platform and monthly award that champions the art of photography by curating and showcasing the exceptional work of a diverse, global community of visual artists. We are dedicated to providing meaningful exposure and celebrating the unique perspectives of photographers from every corner of the world.
Website: https://independent-photo.com/
About the 2025 Annual Exhibition:
The Independent Photographer is pleased to present: The Talents of 2024/202. The culmination of 12 months’ worth of photographic awards, this exhibition showcases the work of 33 international photographers, each selected as the top three within their respective themes by a panel of judges from a host of prestigious agencies, institutions, and publications, including Magnum Photos, National Geographic, and VII Photo Agency. Street, landscape, portrait, documentary, and more: each theme was carefully chosen to allow all photographers the space and freedom to challenge themselves, and fully express their skill and creativity.
. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theindependentphotographer
. Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2083560362177018/
. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theindependentphoto/
Brythonic Photography Exhibition by Dylan Garcia
Brythonic is a project dealing with, time, deeptime, climate change and Britain real or mythological.
Dylan Garcia's practice deals with issues of time, history, mythology, human consciousness and how this relates to the natural world.
Dylan Garcia is a lens based artist living in southern England. He is a member of RPS (Royal Photographic Society), and OVADA (Oxfordshire Visual Arts Development Agency).
He was awarded the Daylight/Format24 Award.
He has exhibited in Rome, London, Athens, Oxford, Cambridge, Amongst other places, and at the Chester Photographic Festival (UK).
Dylans Photobook Brythonic is in the collections of the National Art Library V&A (London UK), Photo Book Cafe (London UK), Hasselblad Foundation (Gothenburg Sweden), PHMuseum (Bologna Italy) and the Photo Book Museum (Cologne Germany).
Dylan has a BA in Graphics (Photography) from Norwich School of Art, MA Photography from Falmouth University and holds ARPS from the Royal Photographic Society.
Social media handles
@dylangarcialensart
Book Launch: The Congress of the Disappeared by Bernardo Kucinski
Join us for the launch of Bernardo Kucinski's novella 'The Congress of the Disappeared', translated by Tom Gatehouse and published by Latin America Bureau & Practical Action Publishing.
In Kucinski’s novella, the ghosts of those disappeared by Brazil’s military dictatorship come together with iconic figures from Brazilian history and more recent victims of state and para-state violence to organize a congress.
In this imagined space, Kucinski draws a line from the state violence of Brazil’s military dictatorship (and since) to the genocide and slavery of the colonial period in Latin America. He gives a voice to the victims, especially the disappeared, allowing them to challenge the attempt to erase them from history and denounce a culture of impunity which continues to pollute Brazilian politics today.
Event hosted by LAB, Brazil Matters, and Amnesty International UK Latin America coordinators.
Speakers:
Bernardo Kucinski (author)
Tom Gatehouse (translator)
Sheila Royce (Amnesty International UK Latin America coordinator)
Ali Rocha (Brazil Matters)
Bernardo Kucinski (b. 1937, São Paulo) is a Brazilian journalist, writer, and political scientist. He has received Brazil’s Jabuti Award on two occasions and was awarded the Brazilian National Library Literary Price in 2014. Kucinski has been a professor at the University of São Paulo, a collaborator with Brazil’s Workers’ Party, and served as advisor to the President of the Republic during the first term of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Congress of The Disappeared, The Past is an Imperfect Tense (both translated by Tom Gatehouse), and K (translated by Sue Branford) are all published by the Latin American Bureau in partnership with Practical Action Publishing.
Art Exhibition: 'Homegrown' by Smalls Gallery
Smalls Gallery is about a genuine love for art and bringing people together. I have been to many art shows, music showcases and felt very inspired. Due to the ways it has made people feel about the art even if it wasn’t my personal taste. I cannot deny its impact. We don’t represent artists specifically rather having a focus on building community and putting on shows. The art world is very inaccessible if you do not have ties to it from your parents or if you are working class person interested in art or a working class artist.
I wanted to create a gallery to combat that. Go back to the essence of what made me love art…which is the art itself. The curated shows that allowed me to wonder!
This was created out of my need to be apart but in true Leo fashion I want do what I want! So I wanted to create a mould that was about the work & people who create and enjoy the work! This model is antagonistic to what I’ve always seen the art industry represent. It’s about stripping everything back.
‘Homegrown’ is an exploration of place and personhood, how they influence each other within visual artistry. It’s about challenging the idea that one must belong to one home. Acknowledging the different things that influence our personhood , that these things are not barriers but openers to a different understanding of self - and then art. This exhibition includes; Kendrafilmz, Toni Micheal, Manu Nzinga, Adeze Akabogu and Medua Uwechue.
Social media handles
@smallsgallery_ and @elishasmalls_
New York 1999-2014 A Photobook Launch & Sale
New York and street photography were made for each other, which is why Matilde Damele (born in Bologna; lives and works in Rome) left for the big city in the 1990s.
She spent fifteen years in New York and now her forays have congealed in a singular picture book of over one hundred images. The light, the skyscraper lined avenues, the pedestrians hurrying past and their loneliness in the crowds, nimbly wielding her camera
Damele recorded all of it in classic b&w. The result is a portrait of a forward-looking metropolis that continually draws our attention to its past. The book launch Friday 3 October 6-8pm is an opportunity to hear her talk about the time spent in the US and her photographic approach.
Book Launch: She Drives, She Surfs by Juanita Richards
She Surfs, She Drives was born from a deep love for Caribbean women and the subcultures that are often overlooked or marginalised.
What began as an intense admiration for the women at the heart of these communities —from surfers to street racers — gradually evolved into a layered portrait of strength, sisterhood and self-expression.
A half-and-half book, She Surfs, She Drives is both intimate and expansive. It marks Juanita’s debut photo book, capturing the energy, resilience and unapologetic spirit of her subjects.
She Drives:
Women across the Caribbean are redefining car culture: Sara Misir, one of Jamaica’s first female circuit racers, competed in the island’s biggest race of the year. Brandii Bodden, a Caymanian who designs custom vinyl car wraps, brings her artistry to the scene. In Kingston, the women of ‘She Likes Cars JA’ come together, bonded by their love of cars and competition. What began as an exploration of racing and car culture soon became a deeper expression of female empowerment, sisterhood, and autonomy, driven by the strength of an all-women team. Led by Director and Photographer Juanita Richards, a woman of Jamaican heritage, this project is not just about car culture itself; it’s about women discovering new parts of themselves.
She Surfs:
Just ten minutes from central Kingston, ‘Surf Girls Jamaica’ led by Imani Wilmot, offers a peaceful escape where young women connect with the ocean and with each other. Imani’s mission goes beyond teaching surfing; she empowers girls to see themselves in the global surf industry, helping them build skills, confidence, and a sense of belonging. For Director and Photographer Juanita Richards, what began as a visit to a stranger soon became a profound sisterhood, showing that this community is much more than surfing; it’s a sacred space dedicated to empowering and uplifting girls.
Social Media Handles
@juanitarichards_
Book Launch and Exhibition: Just Vibes, No Drama by Elliott Wilcox
Just Vibes, No Drama is a modern Love on the Left Bank for the TikTok generation — a sun-soaked, beer-stained love letter to six friends on a Barcelona road trip. It’s Love on La Rambla: messy nights, soft mornings, bad decisions, and fleeting romances, all caught in the glow of youth before it fades. Elliott Wilcox's love letter to youth, friendship, and the kind of romance that only happens once.
Book Launch & Exhibition: Portraits of Philosophers by Minco van der Weide
Thirteen of today's most influential philosophical minds. One beautiful book. Portraits of Philosophers brings together black-and-white portraits, written text, and filmed excerpts of rare encounters with some of the world’s leading philosophers. The project was shot between 2023 and 2025, and offers rare, intimate access to the thinkers shaping how we understand consciousness, morality, meaning, and what it means to live well.
Artist bio:
Minco van der Weide (b. 1997, Netherlands) is a London-based photographer and filmmaker whose work explores ideas through portraiture and documentary form. With a background in film and philosophy from the University of Cambridge, and the National Film and Television School, he creates portraits and documentaries that give form to social, environmental, and intellectual questions. His practice mainly explores the human condition social change, and his work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Biennale.
Social media handles
@platonic @mincoweide
Zine Club
Turn your London snaps into a handmade zine!
Join us for our next Zine Workshop led by a pro photographer + bookmaker @felixfalckn
What to expect:
-Choose your favourite photos
-Print and design your own paper keepsake
-Trim, fold, and staple your zine by hand
-Enjoy a drink while you create in a cozy creative space
_
Please note our basement gallery has no step free access and 25 steps.
1 Zine included with your ticket
The Photobook Cafe Zine Reading Room
ZINE POP‑UP READING ROOM
Welcome to our Zine Pop‑Up Reading Room.
What’s Happening:
On the days of our zine workshops, we transform our basement gallery into a vibrant zine reading room. Seeing a selection of curated titles from our onsite collection. Admission is free and open to all. Come by to browse, flip through, and get inspired by a curated selection of independent zines.
Zine Workshops (6 PM – 8 PM):
After exploring the reading room, join our hands-on zine-making workshop. Whether you're new to zines or a seasoned maker, booking is required to secure your spot.
The Photobook Cafe Zine Reading Room
ZINE POP‑UP READING ROOM
Welcome to our Zine Pop‑Up Reading Room.
What’s Happening:
On the days of our zine workshops, we transform our basement gallery into a vibrant zine reading room. Seeing a selection of curated titles from our onsite collection. Admission is free and open to all. Come by to browse, flip through, and get inspired by a curated selection of independent zines.
Zine Workshops (6 PM – 8 PM):
After exploring the reading room, join our hands-on zine-making workshop. Whether you're new to zines or a seasoned maker, booking is required to secure your spot.
A Take on the World.1970s. Photography Bob Bentley. A Documentary Photobook Launch & Exhibition
BOOK LAUNCH: 6pm-10.30pm Thurs 25 Sept
EXHIBITION OPEN FROM: 4pm Wed 24 Sept - 5pm Sun 28 Sept
A Take on the World.1970s. Photography Bob Bentley. A Documentary Photobook & Exhibition. Step into the world of the 1970s through the lens of Bob Bentley. A Take on the World, a 270 page full colour hard-back Photobook of recently rediscovered pictures taken around the world in the 1970s. Launching at the Photobook Café on 25 September 2025 alongside an exhibition showcasing a selection of the photographs published in the book. Short videos, one for each location will be screened in the cafe and gallery. And there will be an opportunity to buy both the book and select prints during and after. Bob Bentley is an artist, photographer and BAFTA-winning Film & TV director. In the 1970s he travelled the world, creating a colourful, and candid photographic record of people and places. Long unseen, these images now form “A Take on the World - 1970s”, his new photobook of rediscovered documentary pictures.
A Take on the World.1970s. Photography Bob Bentley. A Documentary Photobook Launch & Exhibitio
BOOK LAUNCH: 6pm-10.30pm Thurs 25 Sept
EXHIBITION OPEN FROM: 4pm Wed 24 Sept - 5pm Sun 28 Sept
A Take on the World.1970s. Photography Bob Bentley. A Documentary Photobook & Exhibition. Step into the world of the 1970s through the lens of Bob Bentley. A Take on the World, a 270 page full colour hard-back Photobook of recently rediscovered pictures taken around the world in the 1970s. Launching at the Photobook Café on 25 September 2025 alongside an exhibition showcasing a selection of the photographs published in the book. Short videos, one for each location will be screened in the cafe and gallery. And there will be an opportunity to buy both the book and select prints during and after. Bob Bentley is an artist, photographer and BAFTA-winning Film & TV director. In the 1970s he travelled the world, creating a colourful, and candid photographic record of people and places. Long unseen, these images now form “A Take on the World - 1970s”, his new photobook of rediscovered documentary pictures.
Zine Club
Turn your London snaps into a handmade zine!
Join us for our next Zine Workshop led by a pro photographer + bookmaker @felixfalckn
What to expect:
-Choose your favourite photos
-Print and design your own paper keepsake
-Trim, fold, and staple your zine by hand
-Enjoy a drink while you create in a cozy creative space
_
Please note our basement gallery has no step free access and 25 steps.
1 Zine included with your ticket
The Photobook Cafe Zine Reading Room
ZINE POP‑UP READING ROOM
Welcome to our Zine Pop‑Up Reading Room.
What’s Happening:
On the days of our zine workshops, we transform our basement gallery into a vibrant zine reading room. Seeing a selection of curated titles from our onsite collection. Admission is free and open to all. Come by to browse, flip through, and get inspired by a curated selection of independent zines.
Zine Workshops (6 PM – 8 PM):
After exploring the reading room, join our hands-on zine-making workshop. Whether you're new to zines or a seasoned maker, booking is required to secure your spot.
Book Launch: Gone & Leaving by Agostina Cerullo
Gone & Leaving began as something much larger, a 13-meter-long accordion object that unfolded across tables and floors, somewhere between a book, an installation, and an emotional map. It was built during a time of rupture, frantically collecting fragments of images, thoughts, and emotional residue, searching for form through chaos in a raw and instinctive way.
Over time, the project shifted and condensed, what once occupied the length of a room is now held between two hands.
A year and a half later, it has become what it is today: a small, intimate book. Still accordion-made, still layered and unstable, like memory itself.
The book moves like a film strip: frame by frame, it carries photographs, scans, journal pages, and marks of absence. Its black surfaces absorb and reflect, evoking the cinematic, the intimate, the remembered.
At its core, Gone & Leaving is a book about departures, from places, people, and pieces of identity. It asks: What remains? What unfolds when everything familiar dissolves?
Each of the 100 signed copies is hand-bound, with unique variations and handmade additions. No two are exactly the same.
A book to sit with, to return to, to quietly feel your way through.
To celebrate the launch, there will also be a solo exhibition curated by Anna Leyko, where I’ll be showing a 35mm film slide projection titled In Between Loss and Whatever Comes After. It brings together unseen parts of the project I’ve been working on since late 2023.
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Agostina Cerullo is an Argentinian visual artist and photographer whose work often grows out of movement and change. Having lived between places, she has developed a sensitivity to leaving, adapting, and holding onto memory.
Her practice shifts between photography, installation, moving image, and experimental bookmaking, often touching on themes of grief, identity, and transformation. She works in a hands-on way, using layered images, handmade forms, and personal fragments to explore how feelings can take shape.
She began as a self-taught photographer before continuing her studies at the University of the Arts London and the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Her projects often sit somewhere between archive and sculpture, mixing personal traces with open-ended storytelling. At the core is a search for connection, for ways of making sense of movement and change through shared experience.
Mini-Zine Pop-Up Club
Mini-Zine Pop-Up Club with Felix
We’re excited to host our first Mini-Zine Pop-Up Workshop with Felix, a relaxed, hands-on evening designed for anyone curious about zine-making and looking for a more social, creative environment to connect with others.
This is a drop-in session — no booking required. You can arrive any time between 6 PM and 8 PM and stay as long as you like until we wrap up at 8 PM.
Using ShrimpZine, a fun and intuitive zine template app, we’ll guide you through making your own black-and-white, staple-bound zines from scratch. The process is simple, experimental, and perfect for beginners — but equally inspiring if you’re already a zinester looking to swap ideas and meet others in the community.
All essential materials will be provided, but feel free to bring your own A4 paper if you’d like to use something special.
💸 This is a pay-what-you-can event:
Pay what you can at the bar to take part
For each additional zine you print, we’ll also ask you to pay what you can to cover printing costs
Alongside the workshop, our basement gallery will showcase a curated selection of zines to inspire your own creations and spark conversation.
Whether you’ve been curious about zines for years or just want to try something new in a friendly, creative space, this workshop is the perfect chance to make, share, and connect.
Zine Club
Turn your London snaps into a handmade zine!
Join us for our next Zine Workshop led by a pro photographer + bookmaker @felixfalckn
What to expect:
-Choose your favourite photos
-Print and design your own paper keepsake
-Trim, fold, and staple your zine by hand
-Enjoy a drink while you create in a cozy creative space
_
Please note our basement gallery has no step free access and 25 steps.
1 Zine included with your ticket
The Photobook Cafe Zine Reading Room
ZINE POP‑UP READING ROOM
Welcome to our Zine Pop‑Up Reading Room.
What’s Happening:
On the days of our zine workshops, we transform our basement gallery into a vibrant zine reading room. Seeing a selection of curated titles from our onsite collection. Admission is free and open to all. Come by to browse, flip through, and get inspired by a curated selection of independent zines.
Zine Workshops (6 PM – 8 PM):
After exploring the reading room, join our hands-on zine-making workshop. Whether you're new to zines or a seasoned maker, booking is required to secure your spot.
The way we stand by Azeez Kazzim
A series of portraits made outdoors, exploring how we present ourselves through the way we stand, move, and dress. This work reflects on the small but telling choices we make, how posture and clothing can quietly express who we are. Set against open, natural spaces, the images capture a sense of presence, softness, and connection between people and their surroundings.
Social media handles
@azeezkazzim