About
This Was Tomorrow is a long-term photographic investigation into community-led housing across the UK.
This Was Tomorrow: Is This the Future We Were Dreaming Of? is a long-term photographic investigation into community-led housing across the UK - cohousing, Community Land Trusts, cooperative living, retrofit and repair.
This phase looks at places that are functioning in the present, without framing them as models or solutions. The question throughout is not “does this work?” but something closer to: what futures are still imaginable from where we are now?
The title holds the distance between what was promised and what is lived. The work attempts to make that distance visible - not as failure, but as the actual terrain of collective life.
How this evolved
The investigation began in 2022, documenting endangered council estates in London and the utopian ideals embedded in their material form. A residency at ESAD IDEA in Porto shifted the focus. Rather than documenting loss, the work now examines how places actually function - across different models of collective ownership, adaptation, repair, and resilience.
This ACE-funded phase extends across three geographic strands: London, Cornwall, and the North and West of England.
How I work
Slowly and collaboratively. I spend time on site - listening, walking, joining local sessions, speaking with residents and organisers.
I don’t photograph people as a primary subject. The work focuses on places, interiors, objects, traces of use and spatial relationships. Photographs and sound are kept separate: images don’t illustrate voices, and voices don’t explain images. The intention is to leave space for interpretation rather than producing explanatory case studies.
Any audio recording is optional and fully consent-based. All images and recordings are used only after explicit consent is given.
What I’m documenting
How places are actually used - the everyday infrastructure of communal living. Details of maintenance, adaptation, repair and care. Shared spaces and how they function. Material traces of decision-making and collective work. The visual language of resilience and negotiation.
Supporters & advisors
This work is supported by Arts Council England through the Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) scheme.
I’m working alongside Open City (Simon Vickery, Open House Festival Programme Manager); Thaddeus Zupancic, writer and photographer documenting London’s modernist council housing; and Judith Martin, architectural historian and conservationist, co-author of the original This Was Tomorrow publication.
Exhibition & publication
The work will be exhibited in 2026-27, including during the Open House Festival. A small photo book is also possible. Communities photographed will be credited and involved in how the work is presented.
Earlier work
- This Was Tomorrow - complete project archive
- Published editions - RIBA Bookshop
- Exhibitions & public presentations