To celebrate our 2026 printed issue of Anthropolitan, we held a competition, asking members of the UCL community to create images which hold our theme of temporalities. Here are the shortlisted submissions.
Rie Kimoto – Under the Cherry Tree: Entangled Time in Spa Fields
This work emerged from a multispecies ethnography conducted at Spa Fields in London. Through digitally layering several cyanotypes into a single image, I began to see not a static “symbol of death” trapped in the past, but an ongoing metabolism, a complex entanglement involving other organisms, urban refuse, and soil. What emerges on this blue-scorched surface is an endless question, where past and present, human and non-human, and life and death remain inextricably entwined. What lies beneath the cherry trees is not merely corpses, but the process of life itself, perpetually circulating and being handed down to the future.
Gaia Baldi – Skeletons on the beach
This picture depicts the central part of the remains of Colonia Varese, located in Cervia, Italy. Colonie were holiday houses for children, built mainly during the Fascist Era (1922-1945). Film has a particular engagement with temporality, wherein you do not instantly view the resulting image. I argue the lack of recognition of colonie as places where “history was made” makes discussing their Fascist legacy and potential futures more complex. Yet, this very same colonia was bombed during WWII (hence why only the bare bones of the central part are still present) was used as a hospital, and was the site of a particular idea of childhood, public health, education, and more.
Sebastian Wolfrum – Waiting as the fires burn
In the Brazilian Amazon, canoes are build using single logs, which are hollowed out using adzes over several days. Work is unrelenting, in the middle of the forest with great heat and large amounts of insects, yet people work continuously from daybreak to nightfall with few breaks. Here, waiting allows for an opportunity to connect with and acknowledge the past, the tradition which led to this moment, as if over all the intervening years without boat building, people had waited be able to wait one more time whilst the fires burn.
Xihui Xu – Cherry Blossom
The blossoms arrive suddenly, covering the branches in layers of pink before disappearing almost as quickly. For a moment, an ordinary street becomes something else: a place where people look up rather than ahead, where passing gives way to lingering, and where the changing seasons briefly make themselves visible within the city.
Joe Painter – Champ Security
I was interested in the way different timescales – time of day, time of life, timing of the photograph itself – could interact on this street corner in Newtown, Sydney. Generations seem to be increasingly talked about as having dividing lines, at the expense of talking about the things which tie them together. It’s become commonplace to tag certain behaviours or attitudes, for example, as belonging to one generation or another, and for other generations to affix binary labels to those things. I hope this image captures something of how those perceived lines can, even if only in small ways, be transgressed in favour of connection.
Nychole Kwan – We’re all human b*tches
Taken on March 28th at the march against the far right showcasing a cluster of sign boards each focusing on different points. Signs that mention racism and violated rights focus on what has persisted throughout time, signs calling for changes and action point to future possibility, and a standout sign centre of the photo establishes our current existence as humans. The interconnectedness of past, present and future in language frame political issues as historical, inevitable and urgent.
Bean – An offering to the spectacle
Taken in Dunakanyar on Olympus mju ii with Kodak Colour Plus.
Yujie Wang – Big Ben: Temporal Rhythms in a Student’s London
This photograph captures Big Ben at night, its glowing clock face framed against the moonlit sky. As an international student in London, this landmark is more than a tourist icon—it is a marker of layered temporalities. It reflects how we inhabit multiple times at once: the official time of the city, the distant time of home, and the fragile, suspended time of waiting and belonging as a student abroad. This image is a meditation on how time both divides and connects us, and how we find small anchors of familiarity in a foreign urban landscape.
Abigale Fu – Her Road (shortlisted)
The main image of the series shows four generations of women walking along the path my mother once took to and from school. For her, this road marked the beginning of possibility. Education opened a future beyond the expectations that once defined a woman’s fate. The title Her-Road echoes both hero and herald: the grit and courage of the women who walked before me, and the paths they opened for those who follow.
Thank you to all who submitted and congratulations to all selected artists! You can see our top winners here. Make sure to read our 2026 print of Anthropolitan, if you’ve somehow missed it!
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