SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
Visions of horror and joy
ANGUS REID welcomes the retrospective of a unique photographic artist for its demonstration of new avenues in British art, and the human insight it delivers

The Spaces Between: Richard Welsby
Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, Orkney
AT the centre of Richard Welsby’s work lies a unique account of art in the service of a humanitarian mission in the aftermath of war.
The words are simple, honest and direct. They describe the days and the people encountered during an independent film project in Bosnia in 1997, that accompanied a returning refugee and her need to find both her missing husband, and to grieve, and to begin life again. It was a brief but significant intervention that crossed the paths of several witnesses, and led to a forbidden place: a dank cellar beneath a camp that had formerly been a school.
More from this author
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.

ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership

A landmark work of gay ethnography, an avant-garde fusion of folk and modernity, and a chance comment in a great interview

ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes
Similar stories

JOHN GREEN marvels at the rediscovery of a radical US photographer who took the black civil rights movement to her heart

JOHN GREEN appreciates two photobooks that study the single room of a homeless hostel resident, and a council estate in Exeter

LYNNE WALSH applauds a show of paintings that demonstrates the forward strides made by women over four centuries

ANDY HEDGECOCK uses a magnifying glass to unpick the uncannily prophetic enigma of the high-status medieval Dutch visionary Hieronymus Bosch