Opening hours:

Thur, 1 Oct 2026, 18:00 – 20:00 (Opening) 
Fri, 02 Oct 12:00 – 18:00
Sat, 03 Oct 12:00 – 18:00
Sun, 04 Oct 12:00 – 18:00

‘As a child I would look across the dining table and see the people I belonged to and who belonged to me. But in the mirror I would see a cohort of strangers who were indelibly part of my body, but impossible to reach. Sometimes they could take me by surprise.

I’m transracially adopted. I’m mixed race and my family are white.

This body of work came from wondering how other transracial adoptees process this difference, and how this difference functions in the ways they wish themselves to be seen through portraiture. My practice is grounded in analogue photography. I am not interested in the decisive moment; I’m far more engaged in how the infinite number of moments that make up a person’s life affect the manner in which they wish to be seen.

The work I make concerns itself with how chemistry, substrate and process can function to make meaning. The work on show encompasses these multiple processes, from the simple cyanotype, through paper reversal, and mordançage which is an acid/bleach process that distorts and destroys. I am drawn to the randomness of some of the processes, the difficulty of reproducing consistent stable results.

I see parallels between the chemicals and substrates and the methods of the state, adoptive families, and adoptees themselves. All of them to one degree or another is an attempt to capture and replicate something that might seem simple in the first instance but is extraordinarily complicated, sitting at a junction where family, belonging, loss and coming to terms are constantly tempered with race and the politics that can erupt around it.’

About Tina Rowe:

Tina Rowe is completing a practice-based PhD. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, undertaken multiple funded residencies, and frequently teaches alternative processes. Her work was recognised with the Denis Roussel Award. She writes a Substack, Little Races, on portraiture, language, and collaboration.

Website: https://tinarowe.co.uk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tinarororo