The Hobbyist

What happens when photographers and artists incorporate hobbies into their work as a means of challenging artistic practices and hierarchies? How do hobbyists describe their passions photographically, not least today in our era of digital communication? The Hobbyist is the first major exhibition to explore the relationship between photography and hobby culture, both in connection to photography of hobbies and also photography as a hobby. Both hobby and photographic practices similarly find themselves in between leisure and labour, ideology and consumerism, between amateur culture and professionalism. From the hippy and avant-garde cultures of the 1960s, to 1980s do-it-yourself, to today's maker movement, The Hobbyist explores photography's engagement with a wide variety of lively, often quirky amateur obsessions.