Archival Loops

Presented as part of Portsmouth OPEN, Photo Fringe 2026, the exhibition considers the archive not as a fixed record of the past, but as something that can shift each time we return to it. Photographs, documents and found materials can carry personal and collective histories, but their meaning can change when they are revisited, recontextualised or encountered from a different perspective. The artists brought together in Archival Loops, selected through an open call, use archival material as a way of looking again. Their work asks what happens when photographs, documents and objects are removed from their original context, and what new stories, connections or questions might emerge. The archive becomes a feedback loop: an image that once seemed familiar can become strange; something overlooked can become significant; a story that appeared settled can be reopened. The exhibition also asks us to consider how archives are created in the first place. What is kept, and what is left behind? Which histories become visible, and which remain at the margins? And what happens when we look again? Exhibiting artists: Karl Bailey, Billie Rae Cawte, Patti Gaal-Holmes, Eddie Stenstrom, Laurene Bois-Mariage, Liv Harris, Mia Blake, Monica Dhaka, Sebastián Rodriguez De Castro, Evagelia Hagikalfa, Eva Voutsaki.