RICHARD ANSETT: Liminal Presence

This immersive street photography exhibition invites you to celebrate the beauty and drama of everyday life and people. Experience a moment in time, captured in one day.

RICHARD ANSETT: Liminal Presence

(A Street Photography Experiment)

Saturday 22 November 2025 to Sunday 15 February 2026 at the Usher Gallery. Open Thursday to Monday from 10m to 4pm. Free entry. 

This immersive street photography exhibition invites you to celebrate the beauty and drama of the everyday life and people of Lincolnshire.  Experience a moment in time, captured in one day in August last year. Internationally renowned photographer and award winning artist Richard Ansett mingled with the crowds of shoppers on Lincoln high street, accompanied by his assistant holding a powerful flash on the end of 10 ft pole and his unusual waist-level viewfinder camera. Shoppers were left in no doubt there was a photographer in their midst that day and Richard, a visitor to the city and self-proclaimed ‘outsider’, was accepted by the passers-by, resulting in this series of incredible, spontaneous images, which creative director Jason Baron (who organised and funded Richard’s visit) calls 'baffling synchronicity".
 
This groundbreaking exhibition will be one of the largest solo exhibitions of street photography by a living artist, presented in this monumental,  larger than life installation in the Usher Gallery.
 
Street photography is a departure and ‘an experiment’ for Richard who is best known for his portraiture held in national and international collections including the National Portrait Gallery, The Smithsonian and Bibliotheque Nationale de France.

Richard says "I must have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures in the search for that elusive ‘perfect photo’ - it can sometimes feel like the quest for the Holy Grail! In Lincoln, I wanted to try a completely different approach, which is why this exhibition is called an ‘experiment’. I stopped trying so hard and just let whatever happened, happen and I feel like the universe returned the favour. I don't feel consciously responsible for these pictures, they are a document of me in the street with everyone else on the way to somewhere."

Lincolnshire was home to Chad Varah, who established the Samaritans charity in 1953 and for Richard, who has been a listening volunteer for over 20 years, this was a revelation that helped him form a relationship to Lincoln and its people when he was feeling like an outsider. Richard rarely speaks of this connection but reveals that working for the charity has taught him much and undoubtedly has informed the way he photographs people.

Event programme: Artists Talk (date TBC) and our young people’s group, the Usher Young Creatives, will be producing a photography zine inspired by Richard’s exhibition.

To find out more about Richard Ansett please visit his website.