The Messy Truth - Conversations on Photography

In this episode, from my second salon titled, Between Two Worlds which took place in January 2026 at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and supported by WePresent. The one day salon is an attempt to describe the feeling of existing in two image worlds, the one we think we know, and the new one emerging. We can sense that this new image world operates differently to the one we were socialised in—and yet it’s unclear exactly how. In this session, Gem Fletcher is joined by Rene Matić and Elle Pérez. Together they discuss, What is the work of art today? In an era of rising authoritarianism, the work of art is perhaps more consequential than ever.How can we use photography to preserve history? Is it possible to create lines of undeniability in an era where collective memory is clouded by constant crisis, and erasure is weaponised? How can photography speak to the ephemeral condition of living? And what role does community play in those ideas and gestures?Rene MatićRene Matić is a London-based artist and writer whose practice spans photography, film, and sculpture, converging in a meeting place they describe as "rude(ness)" - an evidencing and honouring of the in-between. Matić riffs on a documentary, diaristic style of photography, with snapshots of everyday moments and poetic juxtapositions, which are then used to create installations, grouping images to surreptitiously bring out buried tensions and paradoxes. Recent solo exhibitions include Turner Prize 2025, Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford, UK (2025); Idols Lovers Mothers Friends, Arcadia Missa, London, UK (2025); AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH, CCA Berlin, Berlin, DE (2024); Rene Matić/Oscar Murillo JAZZ, Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier, Vienna, AT (2024); a girl for the living room, Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol, UK (2023); upon this rock, Kunstverein Gartenhaus, Vienna, AT (2023), upon this rock, South London Gallery, London, UK (2022), among more.Elle Pérez Elle Pérez  lives and works in New York City. Pérez primarily works in photography and moving image, depicting intimate moments, emotional exchanges, and visceral details within their portraits, landscapes, and films. Recent solo exhibitions include: “Devotions,” Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland (2023); “Host,” Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2021); “Devotions,” Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2021); “from sun to sun,” Public Art Fund, New York (2019) and “Diablo,” MoMA PS1, New York (2018). Their work has been included in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2023); the Ballroom Marfa, Marfa, Texas (2022); the Renaissance Society, Chicago (2020); Barbican Centre, London (2020); Brooklyn Museum, New York (2019) and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2019); among others. They are currently an Assistant Professor of photography at Yale University. They have previously held appointments as an Assistant Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University, and Dean at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. They participated in both the 2022 Venice Biennale and the 2022 New England Triennial. Their solo exhibition, “Intimacies,” is currently on view at MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts. They were also recently awarded the 2022-23 Rome Prize in the visual arts.Follow Elle, Rene & Gem on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected]  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Chieska Fortune Smith about her journey through photography and the role of collective learning in her practice. She came to photography through Flickr, the social media platform which earnestly engaged so many of us in the medium. It was a place to upload and share your pictures, while getting feedback from other enthusiasts. Chi’s trajectory pivoted when met Brett Walker on the platform, a photographer in his own right, who mentored a group of budding photographers in London. This model of collective learning was formative for Chi and her peers and gave her the foundations of which she continues to build upon today. In our conversation we talk about the different strands of life, culture and influence which inform her work, what keeps her going and how she moves through the photo industry. Chieska Fortune Smith is born of an African-American soul singer and a Japanese classical dancer. Her work is rooted in classical timelessness and stories with twists of obscurity and illusion. She is heavily influenced by street photography and vintage found imagery from the early 20th century. She has featured in prominent magazines and books including Sixteen Journal, Vanity Fair, and designer Simone Rocha’s debut monograph, and is currently working on a personal project that delves into her Japanese and black American roots. She is based in London.Follow Chi @chieskafortunesmith & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back. To celebrate reaching the 100th episode of the podcast, I collaborated with the team at the International Centre of Photography in New York City, to host a one day salon. My motivation was to gather the community together in person and start talking about where we stand in photography. Titled, Between Two Worlds, the salon was an attempt to describe the feeling of existing in two image worlds, the one we think we know, and the new one emerging. We can sense that this new image world operates differently to the one we were socialised in—and yet it’s unclear exactly how.Before you dive in, I wanted to share what I told the audience at the salon - there are no tidy or easy answers here. In fact my expectation is that these conversations will involve a lot of complexity and contradiction, but holding space for, and embracing this chaos, is in my opinion, the urgent work that needs to be done. In this session On Portraiture, I was joined by Avion Pearce, Caroline Tompkins and Alexander Coggin. Three fascinating photographers, each with their own distinct approach to imaging people, and yet their strategies overlap and intersect in different ways. Throughout history, Portraiture has played a critical role in how we understand people and ourselves, revealing a myriad of ideas about the maker and the sitter. In an era where identities and communities are yet again being erased or reduced, Portraiture feels particularly pertinent to me right now. Projects mentioned:Caroline Tompkins - BedfellowAvion Pearce - In The Hours Before DawnAlexander Coggin - MichealFollow Caroline, Avion, Alexander & Gem on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected] Thank you to the whole team at ICP for collaborating on this project. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Donna Ferrato, a fearless photojournalist who has redefined how the world sees domestic violence through her groundbreaking work. Her seminal book Living With the Enemy [published by Aperture] sparked a global reckoning, exposing the hidden realities of abuse and igniting conversations that continue to drive change. In this conversation, Donna shares her radical approach to image making, what she went through to get her work seen, and her lifelong mission of wielding the camera as a tool for justice.  In 2021, Donna received a grant from the Mayor’s Office to End Gender-Based Violence to build and install a public art installation on a human scale in the form of a prison cell sculpture of mirrored steel which symbolized a portal into the lives of criminalized survivors of domestic violence.  Donna's work has been recognized with numerous prestigious honors, including the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography, the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Outstanding Coverage of the Plight of the Disadvantaged, the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, the Missouri Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service in Journalism, Artist of the Year at the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Look3 Insightful Artist of the Year. In 2008, New York City declared October 30th “Donna Ferrato Appreciation Day,” and in 2009, she was honored by the judges of the New York State Supreme Court for her tireless advocacy for gender equality. In 2025, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from John Jay College of Criminal Justice for her lifelong commitment to justice, truth, and the transformative power of photography.  Donna's photographs are held in major institutional collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, and the International Center of Photography in New York City, as well as in private collections such as those of Celso Gonzalez-Falla, the Marrus Family Fund, Keri Jackson and Adrian Kunzel, Ann and Alex Russ Family Fund. She is represented by the Daniel Cooney Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Follow Donna @donnaferrato & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I Will Keep You in Good Company, the latest book by Liz Johnson Artur brings together pages and fragments from over twenty years of her personal workbooks she has kept since the early 1990s. These books are a kind of private, experimental playground where she shaped her photographic language through layering, cutting, annotating, and assembling: a space for processing not only images, but life itself. Each page is a tactile surface, combining photographic prints on canvas, tracing paper, faxes, and photo stock with screen-prints, handwriting, and clipped texts. The result is a sensorial, intimate archive of moments lived and witnessed – of friends, family, strangers, lovers – held with care and attention. In this conversation, Gem and Liz talk about the workbooks and Liz’s journey making them throughout her career. They also talk about the power of stubbornness, finding your tools, overcoming shyness, how she has integrated her work into her life and the importance of being yourself within the institution. Follow Liz @lizjohnsonartur & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Charlotte Jansen, writer and Photo London curator. They discuss mechanics behind photography fairs, how she approaches the curatorial process and how this aspect of the industry can support the work of emerging artists. Charlotte Jansen is a British Sri Lankan author, journalist and critic based in London. She is the curator of Discovery at Photo London and writes on contemporary art and photography for The Guardian, The Financial Times, The New York Times, British Vogue and ELLE, among others. She is the author of Girl on Girl: Art and Photography in the Age of the Female Gaze, and Photography Now.Follow Charlotte @omfgnoway & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher speaks to Amak Mahmoodian about her latest body of work, ‘One Hundred and Twenty Minutes’, in which she examines dreaming for individuals living in exile. Working with 16 collaborators, Amak uses photography, poetry, drawing and video to explore the new lives created through dreams, as well as the ways in which dreaming enables individuals to return to a past that cannot be reached while awake. Amak Mahmoodian is a multidisciplinary artist and educator. She began her career as a research-based photographer in Iran in 2003 at the Art University of Tehran. Since 2010, she has been living in the UK, unable to return to Iran. She practices as a visual artist at the intersection of conceptual image-making and documentary photography, working with photographs, text, video, drawing, archives and sound.Her practice explores the presentation of gender, identity and displacement, bridging a space between personal and political across platforms and formats including installation, books and films.Her works are held in collections such as the Tate, and the British Library in London. She has published two books, Shenasnameh (RRB- ICV Lab, 2016), and Zanjir (RRB, 2019) which was the winner of The Best Photo Text Book award at Rencontres Arles, 2020.Follow Amak @amak_mahmoodian & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Alessia Glaviano, the Head of Global PhotoVogue and Director of the PhotoVogue Festival. They discuss relevance, why Alessia hates nostalgia, the importance of obsession and why artists need the freedom to be controversial. Since joining Vogue Italia in 2001, Glaviano rapidly ascended from Photo Editor to Visual Director, where she played a crucial role in shaping the visual identity of the publication. In early 2022, with the relaunch of PhotoVogue on a global scale, Glaviano’s role shifted to focus on leading PhotoVogue, collaborating with all editions of Vogue worldwide. Under Glaviano’s leadership, PhotoVogue has become an industry-leading platform, curating a diverse pool of image-makers and exemplifying diversity behind the camera through a multitude of perspectives. In her expanded role, she continues to steer the platform into its future while overseeing its creative direction and driving key special projects.In addition to her editorial work, Alessia regularly lectures at esteemed institutions, including the United Nations, the University of Brighton, Central Saint Martins, IED, Bocconi University, and the Milan Polytechnic. She has also served on the juries of internationally acclaimed photography contests, including the World Press Photo, the Festival International de Mode et de Photographie à Hyères, and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award, and has participated in several prestigious portfolio review sessions, such as the New York TimesPortfolio Reviews.Follow Alessia @alessiaglaviano & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Gem Fletcher talks to Cait Opperman about her creative journey and her new full service production company Flowers. Born from her desire for greater autonomy and more direct and meaningful collaboration with her clients, Cait is creating a new model beyond the  traditional photographer and agent dynamic. While she had a hunch that building Flowers would offer a more expansive way of working with less compromise, Cait also found it rekindled her personal connection to creativity in dynamic and unexpected ways. Cait Oppermann is a New York-based photographer, director and entrepreneur working in the fine art, commercial and editorial sectors and beyond. After receiving her BFA in Photography from Pratt Institute, Cait has built a successful career working with clients including Nike, Meta, Rapha, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time, Volvo and On Running. In 2023, Cait launched FLOWERS, a cross-disciplinary creative studio and full-service production company based in New York, working across the globe.Follow Cait @caitoppermann & @flowersfullservice & Gem @gemfletcher on Instagram. If you've enjoyed this episode, PLEASE leave us your feedback in the Apple Podcast store. Thank you for listening to The Messy Truth. We will be back very soon. For all requests, please email [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.