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Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other: A Photography Conference (26 June 2026) 



Call for Contributions: ‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other: A Photography Conference’
 
  • Deadline for Applications: Sunday 10 May 2026, 23:59 BST
  • Live Event: 10:00-17:00 BST, Friday 26 June 2026 (in-person)
  • Venue: Room Y0.02 (Ground Floor), Greater Manchester Business School, University of Greater Manchester, Great Moor St, Bolton BL1 1SW (next door to Bolton Train Station)
  • Public, free entry (booking essential, to be released shortly)

Overview

In 1994, writer, critic and historian Dame Marina Warner delivered the prestigious Reith Lectures for the BBC on the theme ‘Six Myths of Our Time: Managing Monsters’. Thirty years on, her analyses of social anxieties blister with relevancy: six wide-ranging and pin sharp reflections that wheel from the fury aimed at single mothers, to the foundations of toxic masculinity, the loss of childhood innocence, an anthropomorphism of nature, the fear and dehumanisation of migrants, and to nostalgic lies about national identity. Through the grand narratives of the Monster and the Other, Warner asks us to look again at examples of oppression, prejudice, and stereotype, in the context of mythology and the retelling of histories.

This intersectional and interdisciplinary photography conference, entitled ‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other’, revisits Warner’s social critique in today’s digital-obsessed world: one still attuned to male desire, increasingly shaped by biased machine-learning, hostage to beauty cults, and bombarded with misogynist and fascist media. 

Guidelines

We invite proposals for 15-minute presentations that challenge dominant accounts of the Other in contemporary photography – from the traditional to the experimental to the genre-bending. As the conference is open to the public, it is intended to reach a broad, diverse audience that is as accessible as possible.

Presentations will question, respond to, or skirt the edges of ‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other’. Consider submitting proposals that use a key word from the title, dig into the following thematic provocations, or propose your own interpretations:
  • Future, intersectional feminism and its possible afterlives
  • Other, underrecognised or uncategorised knowledge 
  • The excluded or displaced body 
  • Transformation, shape-shifting and alter-egos
  • Mimicry, duplication, fakery and appropriation
  • Creaturely or post-human forms 

Eligibility

For this particular conference, we are inviting a wide range of contemporary photographic practitioners and image-makers, working in traditional, experimental, expanded or hybrid forms. Photographers, artists, critics, curators, theorists, writers, archivists, historians, performers, other... If your research interests respond to photography in any shape or form, we want to hear from you.

As we are a disability-friendly and socially inclusive university working on widening participation in academia, proposals from underrepresented researchers are especially encouraged. We welcome those who identify as marginalised, or speaking from the margins: (including but not limited to) if you have been impacted by misogyny, are working class, disabled, neurodiverse, minority ethnic, or LGBTQIAAP+.

Proposals are welcome from those at any stage of their career.

Access

We aim to make this event accessible to all disabled people, in light of the BPA/SWIP guidelines for accessible conferences. We ask you to help us achieve this goal by letting us know about any tech and/or access provision that will help you to best succeed at this event (e.g. BSL, pre-recorded elements, captioning, speaking via Zoom, etc.). 

Proposals for presentations in alternative formats (e.g. performances or screenings) are very welcome.

The venue, Greater Manchester Business School, is fully accessible and the conference room is located on the ground floor. It is a 2-minute walk from Bolton Train Station (on the same block), and a 12-minute walk from NCP Bolton Topp Way.

Fee

£150 speaker fee, plus UK-based travel expenses to Bolton. 

We have a limited hotel budget for those travelling the furthest; if you would like to stay over in Bolton the night before/after, please indicate in the application, and we will do our best to accommodate you.

Publication and Display

We will be publishing a journal of ‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other’ contributions (image and text) from all speakers, which we hope to collate post-conference. 

The live event will be recorded, with the intention of sharing it online for those who can't attend in-person.

How to Apply

If you are interested in contributing to ‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other’, welcome!

Please fill in this short online application form by Sunday 10 May 2026, 23:59 BST: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/UNMi6bazzK 

Alternatively, if you need to apply via voice note or video recording, please email Laura (details below) and we will arrange contact over WhatsApp. 

Form breakdown:
  • Contact details: email, phone number and geographical location
  • Proposal: a rough outline of what you wish to present at the conference. Presentation slots will be 15 minutes in duration and may be accompanied by additional group discussion/Q&As. If you have a film you’d like to screen, tell us about it here (300 words max)
  • About you: bio, pronouns, affiliation/university/organisation (100 words max)
  • Links: any relevant links connecting us to examples of your work/projects/research (e.g. Instagram, personal website)
  • Indication of format (e.g. slides, audio, film, live reading), AV/technical requirements, and/or access needs
  • Hotel request.

Key Dates
  • Deadline for contribution proposals: Sunday 10 May 2026, 23:59 BST
  • Notification of acceptance: end of May 2026
  • Conference live event: Friday 26 June 2026
  • Publication TBC

Acknowledgments 

‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other: A Photography Conference’ is co-convened by Laura Robertson, Roxana Allison-Eguiluz and Professor Jill Marsden, on behalf of the BA Photography programme at the University of Greater Manchester, Bolton, and made possible by funding from the Jenkinson Awards Scheme 2026 and the Ryley Research Internship Scheme, with many thanks.

Putting our students first, the University of Greater Manchester provides the No. 4 BA programme in the UK for Film Production and Photography (The Guardian’s Best UK Universities 2025). We're delighted to be No. 1 in the North West for Teaching Quality (The Times and Sunday Times, Good University Guide), and for the past 6 years, we have been ranked No.1 for Student Satisfaction (Complete University Guide - Student Satisfaction - North West).

This conference expands upon a panel discussion of the same name, chaired by Dame Marina Warner and readings by MA Writing students Fiona Glen, Hattie Gibson, Laura Robertson and Yin Ying Kong, Royal College of Art, London. Originally broadcast on Twitch, Thursday 30 July 2020, it formed part of the MA Writing Royal College of Art degree show programme #RCA2020.

Committee Biographies

Laura Robertson is a working-class art critic, writer, and Lecturer in Photography Theory at the University of Greater Manchester. She is currently working on two horror-led books: Alive~Asleep, on night terrors, grief and contemporary culture, will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2026; and NIGHT, on art after dark, will be released by Tate Publishing in 2027. She has bylines in the world’s top magazines and newspapers, including Art Monthly, ArtReview, and frieze, and is a guest critic on BBC Radio Four’s Front Row.

Roxana Allison-Eguiluz is a Mexican-British photographer who works as a Photography Technical Officer at the University of Greater Manchester. Her photographic practice is shaped by her lived experience of migration and bicultural upbringing which focuses on themes of place, belonging and community. Among the institutions Roxana has collaborated with are Waterside Gallery, Impressions Gallery, Open Eye Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, HOME, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Manchester City Council, and she is a member of Foto Féminas. Roxana is a winner of the British Journal of Photography Portrait of Britain Award (Vol. 6).

Jill Marsden is Professor of Literature and Philosophy at the University of Greater Manchester. She has written on feminism and the body in a range of different publications including Women’s Philosophy Review, Women: A Cultural Review, Radical Philosophy, The Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Cyberpsychosis (1999), Gender in Flux (2004) and The Missing Mother (2024).

Contact

For more information, please email Laura Robertson, Lecturer in Photography Theory. Please use the subject heading ‘Creature, Stranger, Monster, Other’: L.Pinnington@greatermanchester.ac.uk 

Instagram @ugmphoto: https://www.instagram.com/ugmphoto/ 

Online application form, deadline Sunday 10 May 2026, 23:59 BST: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/UNMi6bazzK



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