Short-form
the short breath.
The short breath of the Journal, its heartbeat between one essay and the next. Impressions from screenings, exhibitions and journeys, short discoveries worth following, and news from inside the Lab, most often a film entering our catalogue. Written close to the moment, in the voice of the Lab.
Latest · From the Lab
A young boy finds a mermaid washed up on the shingle at Dungeness, while his older brother is swept up in the rising tide of far-right nationalism. A note from the Lab on Patrick Ireland's Ill Fares The Land.
12 October 2026
6 October 2026
A Greek myth told without a word, on Super 8 Ektachrome, on a Kent shore where the tide uncovers fifty million years. A note from the Lab on Jack Davies's Perseus.
26 September 2026
Twenty-seven photographers, seven decades, one word returning on the walls: record. A walk through Japanese Women Photographers at The Photographers' Gallery, in its final days.
25 August 2026
At the Barbican, Liam Young has built rooms around his films rather than films for his rooms. A foyer, a curved gallery and a car park become a route through possible futures.
12 July 2026
A film shot on Super 8, hand-developed in caffenol, and now finding a second life on a streaming platform. Eva Sajovic's Rise and Fall of a Temple begins with the ruins of Rome and ends with a cardboard temple collapsing on the porch of the British School. The most fragile medium for the most monumental subject.