Susan Derges and Tom Hunter are included in London Lives at Somerset House. The exhibition is a collaboration with Photo London 2025 to celebrate the fair’s 10th anniversary, reflecting the people, stories, and spirit of the city.
Susan Derges’s Mortal Moon series, commissioned for the Queen’s House in Greenwich, was created in response to the Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I. The works are inspired by fragile vessels travelling the oceans at the mercy of heavenly and earthly forces – sailors on voyages of discovery, trade, piracy, colonisation and slavery. Her layered images reflect celestial light on water, blending myth, navigation, and present day echoes of migration and loss.
Tom Hunter’s series Persons Unknown reimagines the lives of women who died alone in London, with no known relatives. His work looks to the golden age of Dutch painting, inspired by how it gave space to the lives of ordinary people rather than royalty or generals. In Woman Reading a Possession Order (1997), his neighbour reads an eviction notice, recalling Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window.
