In Consideration of Our Times opens in Scotland next month

The Stills Photo Centre in Edinburgh will present In Consideration of Our Times, a new exhibition by Glasgow-based artist Matthew Arthur Williams, running from 12 September to 18 October 2025, with a preview on 11 September.

Williams, born in London in 1989, is known for work that engages with race, queerness, memory and history. Central to his practice is the exploration of archival absences – how formal histories can exclude or marginalise certain narratives. His approach often involves collaboration and spans photography, moving image and sound.

Williams says memory is not static but something to be actively worked on, allowing hidden histories to be uncovered, retold and preserved. In this exhibition, he presents a new moving image piece alongside colour and black-and-white self-portraits and landscapes, which he describes as being “in a state of constant loss.”

All the photographic work was created using analogue processes in the public darkrooms at Stills and Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow – spaces that allow him to embrace the slower, more contemplative pace of film photography.

The centrepiece is Another Allegory (2025), a 21-minute 16mm film transferred to digital, shot over three years in pastoral UK locations. Following violinist Blaize Henry, the work revisits sites of fragmented queer archival material, blending performance with atmospheric moments, including a gathering thunderstorm.

Williams’ work has been shown widely, with recent exhibitions including Lives Less Ordinary at Two Temple Place, London (2025) and Digging In Another Time at The Hunterian, Glasgow (2024). His 2022 solo exhibition Soon Come at Dundee Contemporary Arts combined archival material, interviews and self-portraiture to examine the intertwined histories of Jamaica and Stoke-on-Trent.

Speaking about the new show, Williams says: “My work is saying something very loudly to me, and I like to leave it up to the viewer if those things resonate for them. This show at Stills is no different – it’s about taking a moment to stop, or move at a slower pace.”

More details at stills.org