Artist Talk: Kate and Carol // September 26
A conversation about mothers, photography and long-term personal projects; and something for anyone who has, or has had, a mum.
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“Kitchen Angel” – Cheryl Newman
ARTIST TALK: KATE AND CAROL
Cheryl Newman & Katharine MacDaid in conversation with curator Zelda Cheatle
Saturday 26 September at 6 PM, Fotografiens Hus invites you to a conversation between artists Cheryl Newman and Katharine MacDaid and curator and gallerist Zelda Cheatle.
The event is free and will be in English
What happens when your mother becomes the subject of a photographic project, for years, or even decades?
British photographers Cheryl Newman and Katharine MacDaid have both spent many years photographing their mothers. Newman’s images emerge through collaboration, humour and exchange with her mother, while MacDaid’s project moves between intimacy and distance, affection and control.
Taking the exhibition Kate and Carol as its starting point, the conversation will move between the personal and the professional. What is it like to photograph someone you know so well? How does a project change over many years, along with the people in it? And what happens after the photograph is taken, through editing, sequencing, exhibiting and publishing?
Zelda Cheatle. Foto: Anselm Ebulue
The conversation will be led by Zelda Cheatle, a leading figure in British photography for more than four decades. After working as a photographer, she joined The Photographers’ Gallery in London in the 1980s, later founded the Zelda Cheatle Gallery, and has since worked internationally as a curator, lecturer and advisor.
Together, they will talk about mothers, photography and collaboration, as well as how personal projects find their way into exhibitions, books and the wider world of photography.
For photographers and anyone interested in contemporary photography, this evening offers a chance to hear the field discussed from the inside, drawing on decades of experience from British and international contemporary photography.
But you don’t need to be a photographer to find something familiar here. The conversation should be of interest to anyone who has, or has had, a mum.
The event is funded by Norske Fagfotografers Fond and Fritt Ord.
“My Mother, Kate” by Katherine MacDaid
Zelda Cheatle is an Irish-born curator, gallerist and former photographer who has been a leading figure in British photography for more than four decades.
After beginning her career as a photographer, she joined The Photographers’ Gallery in London in the early 1980s, working with internationally recognised photographers as well as emerging British and European artists. In 1989, she founded the Zelda Cheatle Gallery, which became known for its international programme and for championing photography across documentary and fine-art practice.
Since closing the gallery in 2005, Cheatle has continued to work internationally as a curator, lecturer and advisor, with projects across Europe, China, Russia, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and India. Throughout her career, she has been a strong advocate for photography as an art form and for photographers at different stages of their careers.
Katharine MacDaid (b. Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a photographic artist based in Oslo. Raised between the Sultanate of Oman, the Pacific Northwest, and Northern Ireland, her work explores the intersections of landscape, longing, and inherited identity.
She holds an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art, London. Following her studies, she returned to Oman, where she developed the work that became Calling Shapes, Beckoning Shadows, a project confronting childhood memory and place. Later work made in Alaska led to her self-published artist book, The Fireweed Turns, launched at The Photographers’ Gallery, London.
She is currently developing several long-term bodies of work. Her projects from Northern Ireland, When Will We Be Married and Ulaidh, converge with My Mother, Kate, through which she continues to explore questions of Irish identity.
Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions, festivals, and exhibition platforms including Kunstnernes Hus, Fotogalleriet, The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Voies Off Arles, Festival Internazionale di Roma, Museum Villa Rot, Palm Springs Photography Festival, Kolga Tbilisi Photo, and the Ian Parry Scholarship, with exhibitions spanning Norway, the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and North America.
MacDaid is a member of Stiftelsen Bjørka, an artist collective dedicated to analogue photography. She co-runs FRAKT, a public arts space for photography and moving image in Oslo and worked as a visiting tutor at Bilder Nordic School of Photography (Kristiania).
Cheryl Newman is a London-based photographic artist, curator, and photography director whose practice moves between photography, collage, and autobiographical narrative. Her work explores love, desire, memory, and family history through what she describes as “landscapes of emotion” — intimate reflections on the human condition shaped by personal experience, sexuality, religion, and the social politics of the 1970s. Drawing from childhood and adolescence, her images navigate themes of intimacy, vulnerability, and identity through layered visual storytelling.
She holds an MA in Photography Arts with Distinction from the University of Westminster and a BA in Fine Art from Brighton University. Alongside her artistic practice, Newman has built an influential curatorial and editorial career spanning photography, publishing, and education. She is currently Photo Editor at The Observer New Review and Associate Lecturer on the MA Photography programmes at UAL, London College of Communication.
Newman has curated and commissioned major international photography projects including 209 Women at the Houses of Parliament, now part of the Parliamentary Collection, and We Feed the World for the Gaia Foundation, collaborating with photographers across more than forty countries. Her curatorial projects have been presented internationally in London, Vienna, Barcelona, India, Geneva, and Sydney, with a particular focus on supporting female and underrepresented voices in photography.
Her own photographic work has been exhibited internationally at festivals, galleries, and publications including PhotoVogue Festival Milan, Paris Photo, LA BAL Paris, The Borough Road Gallery London, Head On Photo Festival Sydney, Pingyao Photography Festival China, the National Museum Gdańsk, and Format Festival UK. Her work has also appeared in FT Weekend Magazine, The British Journal of Photography, Der Greif, and The Eyes Journal. In 2023 she was selected for Portrait of Britain by the British Journal of Photography, and in 2026 will be part of the Winston Taylor Photo Portrait Prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London.