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We are delighted to welcome documentary photographers David Hadland and Sarah Hickson as guests for our next In Focus event at Riverside Studios on 14 September 2026 at 7:15 pm.
In this edition of In Focus, David and Sarah explore the human stories shaped by conflict and displacement. Through their photography, they document lives transformed by crisis from soldiers living on the frontline in Ukraine to refugees navigating loss, uncertainty and the search for a new sense of belonging. Their work reflects on survival, resilience and the enduring connection between people, memory and place.
David Hadland is a documentary and portrait photographer from Luton, U.K. He lived in London for 11 years, where he graduated with a BA in Photography from Kingston University in 2018, and in 2024he graduated with an MA in Documentary Photography and Photojournalism from the London College of Communication. The core themes of David’s photography are identity, memory and the human experience. David is currently based in Kyiv, Ukraine, working on his long-term project documenting the full-scale war.
Kozak is an ongoing project exploring the lives of Ukrainian soldiers stationed on the frontline. Through portraits and observations of daily life in the combat zone, the work examines how warfare disrupts the connection between people and the places they once called home.
War reshapes more than the landscape itself. Homes, streets, and fields once tied to ordinary life are transformed by conflict, altering how they are experienced and remembered. The soldiers I photograph inhabit dugouts along the frontline, living between the familiarity of home and the instability of war.
The title Kozak reflects a sense of continuity in Ukraine, linking the present to a longer history of resistance, identity, and place. Rather than focusing on spectacle or combat itself, the project centres on the everyday experience of soldiers living through war.
Sarah Hickson is an arts and social documentary photographer, now based in Brighton. Her practice explores the relationship between people, place and environment to create visual narratives that focus on themes of community and belonging, fracture and displacement.
She has worked on photographic commissions, residencies and projects in West and North Africa, India, Europe and around the UK. Sounds Unseen, an exhibition of work documenting a collaborative music project in the ‘Jungle’ refugee camp in Calais, was commissioned by St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York and Galway International Arts Festival. Her photo essay about Kolkata was featured in the book Writing Places, following an artistic residency with the National Centre for Writing in Norwich and Kolkata. Her 200 portraits of participants in the touring theatre project Truth to Power Café, formed an integral part of the theatrical narrative, bearing witness to the participants’ personal testimonies.
It is often the frayed edges of a story that draw Sarah’s attention, where vulnerability and fragility reside alongside hope and resilience. She will present an overview of her work on migration and displacement, referencing projects she has undertaken in Calais, Serbia and Greece, Galway and the UK.
She will also briefly talk about two other projects: her visits to the Taragalte Festival in the Sahara Desert in South Morocco, exploring the endangered environment of M’hamid El Ghizlaine and its historic nomadic culture, and her photo essay about Kolkata, capturing the nuanced and multi-layered nature of daily life in this city, where the past and the present collide.
IN FOCUS is produced by the Photojournalism Hub in collaboration with Riverside Studios to present compelling, thought-provoking, independent and coraugeous photo storytelling.
