One of the most unexpected developments in the studio over the past couple of years has been just how much time I have spent writing.

For many years, writing has run quietly alongside the work. At times it has been a way of following thoughts that did not yet belong anywhere else. More recently, however, it has become something more exacting.

The Photograph As Event

For the first time, I have been able to examine my photographic practice in full: not only how the work is made, but why it has taken the form it has.

Many of you first joined me through the artist residency programme and community projects. Over the past few months I have been bringing to completion something that sits quietly behind the images: a manuscript exploring the ideas, experiments and physical processes that have shaped my practice over the last forty years.

The Photograph As Event is now approaching 180 pages. It has proved every bit as demanding as many of my past projects.

In some ways, perhaps more so. It has required me to question ideas I have carried instinctively for decades, and to find language for things that have often felt easier to demonstrate than explain.

I have been fortunate to receive thoughtful feedback from a small group of peers who have followed my practice over many years. Their insight and guidance have been invaluable, helping reshape the manuscript stronger & clearer and, I hope, more generous to the reader when published.

Much of the manuscript remains private. Rather than releasing chapters publicly, I have chosen to develop it through a private Reading Room while editorial work continues. The publication will eventually appear as a complete work. For now, I simply wanted to share a few photographs from the process.

Most importantly, I wanted to say thank you.

Your support here has given me something increasingly rare: the time to think slowly. Not simply to produce new work, but to reflect on why the work exists in the first place. That is an extraordinary gift for an artist, and one I do not take for granted.

As the manuscript moves towards publication, I hope you will recognise your own part in making it possible.

Thank you for being here.

Alexander