Book Talk: Hurled Towards the Future: Lesbian Photography and Queer Imagination in 1980s London

This event celebrates the publication of Dr Flora Dunster’s Hurled Towards the Future: Lesbian Photography and Queer Imagination in 1980s London (Paul Mellon Centre 2026).

Hurled Towards the Future is the first art-historical account of photography from London’s lesbian sex-radical scene. It explores how lesbian photographers in late 1980s and early 1990s London worked within a climate of resistance and possibility to imagine—and create—a queer future. Focusing on the work of Tessa Boffin and Del LaGrace Volcano, this book argues that, through their photography, these artists made a critical contribution to the reclamation of “queer” as both a political identification and an aesthetic practice.

Following a lecture, Flora will be joined in conversation by Dr Laura Guy.

This event is organised by Dr Catherine Grant, Reader and Vice-Dean for Education, Courtauld Institute of Art.