05. Reflect
We first met Vinca Petersen years ago at Offprint in Paris, alongside Stephen Gill, and recently found ourselves revisiting No System, her photobook published by Steidl. Petersen’s work draws from her own experience within the European free party scene of the 1990s, a period during which she travelled extensively and lived within the communities she photographed.
Another book by Vinca, Future Fantasy, is also included in Estelle Hanania’s photobook selection for this issue, further extending this shared exploration of dance beyond the stage.


Human beings have been moving to the beat of a drum for thousands of years, movement is part of the essence of what it is to be human. But not only dancing together bonds us, moving in other ways creates connection.




Photographs of the book, No System, Published by Steidl, 1999. Special thanks to Ben Graville.
Courtesy of Vinca Petersen.


As Vinca shared, ¨Leaving home and discovering the squatting scene and the free party movement in the 90s released something inside myself and helped me find a community. Being involved in organising illegal raves, I could share the sense of freedom and connection gained from spending a whole night dancing with a group of people.¨

Now based on the remote Scottish island of Skye, her practice continues to unfold through lived experience. Over the past three years, more than forty people have helped her and her son build their home from natural materials. Learning and working side by side, they moved through thousands of manual tasks, working, talking, eating, laughing, creating. As she describes it, “now we all feel a strong sense of connection and community and there is a beautiful natural building standing as testament to what can be achieved when people come together.”





HULALA, Isle of Skye, Scotland, 2022–2026

A first glimpse of HULALA, a new body of work developed over the past four years on the Isle of Skye, where Vinca has been living within a crofting township while building a natural straw bale house with the help of more than fifty people. Exploring the space between independence and collectivity, old traditions and new rituals, HULALA reflects on the transformative potential of community in a rapidly changing world. The project was recently presented at Rabbet Gallery in London as part of the Peckham 24 Photography Festival.