Samuel Ian McCarthy & Lars Lindqvist

Samuel Ian McCarthy (he/him) is a photographer, artist, and emerging researcher currently studying an MFA in Photography at HDK-Valand in combination with an MA in Communication for Development and Social Change at Malmö University; his current practice is centred around questions of ecology, queerness, and justice, specifically trans-species interaction, costs, and imaginaries.

Lars Lindqvist (he/him) is a senior lecturer in the unit for film, photography and literary composition at HDK-Valand; teaching photography at undergraduate and advanced levels, and often arranging extensive workshops focusing on a variety of b&w analogue photographic processes. Educated at Konstfack in the early 90s, Lars is an active photographer, artist, and educator in Gothenburg since 1999.

Through a collaborative practice grounded in holistic values, Sam and Lars engage with the intensifying ecologies of sustainability, violence, and justice. Their artistic research unfolds through workshop-based methodologies that embrace slowness as a form of resistance to extractivism, fossil-fuel dependency, and digital acceleration. Working with alternative and experimental analogue photography, they critically confront the medium’s entanglement with animal-derived gelatine, petroleum-based plastics, and toxic chemical processes. In response, they explore and develop plant-based, non-toxic, and ecologically sensitive approaches; seeking to reimagine photographic practices that are both materially and ethically attuned. Within this framework, heat is not only a threat but an essential ingredient: a catalyst for change, care, and collective alternative imaginaries.