Humorous. Mundane. Tender. Awkward. Painful. Joyful. Human relationships can be all these things and more. That is the idea at the heart of Love Stories, a new photography show at Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, this winter. It brings together 10 internationally acclaimed image-makers – Akihito Yoshida, Carol Allen-Storey, Charan Singh, Isabel Okoro, Martin Parr, Masahisa Fukase, Ollie Adegbayo, Richard Billingham, Sunil Gupta and Zanele Muholi – who each reveal a different way love shows up in our everyday lives. Rather than presenting idealised visions of love, however, these creatives embrace the complexities of emotional ties between people. As Tafadzwa Makwabarara, Curator, says: “Every photograph in this exhibition tells a love story, but not always the one we expect. Love appears here as friendship, family, commitment, longing, and self-acceptance, reminding us that there is no single way to love or be loved.”
Amongst the most recognisable works in the show are those by the late documentarian Martin Parr (1952–2025), whose series Bored Couples (1990–1993) was made in public spaces – restaurants, holiday resorts and ferries – across Europe. Parr described the project as an exercise in exploring how titles and captions influence viewers’ interpretations, encouraging us to question whether those depicted were genuinely bored, or whether that perception was created by the title itself. As with all of Parr’s work, it combines his signature wit and social commentary. Also from the canon of British photography is Richard Billingham’s Ray’s a Laugh (1995–1996), which documents the lives of his parents, Ray and Liz, in a council flat in England’s Black Country. It is a raw and intimate portrayal of family life shaped by poverty and addiction.
Romantic love is the focus of several works on view, including Lovers, Revisited by writer and activist Sunil Gupta (b. 1953), created together with his husband Charan Singh. It responds to Gupta’s landmark, stereotype-challenging photographic project, Lovers: Ten Years On, that documented gay couples in their West London apartments in the 1980s. The latest chapter of this endeavour reshoots surviving participants, alongside an array of contemporary queer couples across different ages, genders and sexualities. Gupta’s pictures create a powerful conversation with self-portraits from Zanele Muholi’s iconic Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness) (2016–2018). Muholi is a visual activist, best known for documenting and celebrating the lives of Black LGBTQIA+ communities, especially in South Africa. Somnyama Ngonyama is a defining work of the 21st century, exploring race, gender, representation and the politics of visibility through striking black-and-white imagery. The show also includes Masahisa Fukase’s deeply personal, emotionally intense and often darkly obsessive From Window (1974), made during his 13-year marriage to his second wife, Yoko Wanibe, photographing her each morning as she left for work.
Elsewhere, there is a focus on parenthood, with award-winning photojournalist Carol Allen-Storey contributing images from her ongoing personal project Defying the Myth (2014–). It carefully documents the lives of three single mothers raising children with severe disabilities. Meanwhile, Ollie Adegbayo’s Bàbá, Father (2021–2023) presents intimate portraits of Black fathers with their children, inspired by his own transition into fatherhood and the experiences of his close friends. Companionship is likewise central to Isabel Okoro’s Friends in Eternity (2021), depicting young Black people playing on a beach together. It responds to the need for more depictions of Black youth at ease, engaging in leisure activities.
With great love, sadly, comes deep grief. Love Stories marks the first time that Japanese photographer Akihito Yoshida’s collections The Absence of Two (2017) and The Dialogue of Two (2022) have been shown in the UK. The former examines the relationship between Yoshida’s grandmother and her grandson Daiki, the photographer’s cousin, capturing their daily life together, the love they shared and its eventual ending. The latter explores what remains after a loss, imagining a continuing connection shared by two people separated by death. It is sure to strike an emotional chord with the Centre’s audiences.
Together, these works offer a multifaceted portrait of love, one that extends beyond romantic relationships to encompass friendship, family, identity and the bonds that endure beyond death. Across the exhibition, the photographers capture moments of connection that are at once deeply personal and universally recognisable. In doing so, Love Stories reminds us that love is rarely straightforward. It can be joyful and painful, fleeting and enduring, but it remains an essential part of what it means to be human.
Love Stories is at Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, from 19 December – 30 May.
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
1. Martin Parr, Bored Couple, New Brighton, England, 1983-85. Copyright Martin Parr/Magnum, courtesy Rocket Gallery, London.
2. Carol Allen-Storey, Defying the Myth, 2024. Courtesy and copyright of the artist.
3. Masahisa Fukase, Untitled, from the series From Window, 1973. © Masahisa Fukase Archives, courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery in London.
4. Masahisa Fukase, Untitled, from the series From Window, 1973. © Masahisa Fukase Archives, courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery in London.
5. Isabel Okoro, Friends in Eternity, Towards Earth, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.
