Sliding into the past at LBF

Lincoln Book Festival Review

By Katie Seller

Sliding by Adam York Gregory and Gillian Jane Lees took you into the world of 35mm slide opening a window into forgotten and lost moments from the past.

Presented as a part of the Lincoln Book Festival, Sliding is a book and film taking in 100 35mm slides, selected by Gillian with each bringing a sense of history and nostalgia to the piece - from a day at the beach with a promise of ice cream to the last ever picture of someone’s loved one on this earth. 

Photography has become disposable today. A quick click of a button and the picture can be on your phone forever probably to never be looked at again. 

Sliding really made you slow down and appreciate the analogue process; how precious each slide is and the tactical decision you make about how you want to bring them into the world, what do you choose to take a picture of, how to frame it, what its story will be. 

Paired with a written response from Adam, narrated by Gillian, each slide was brought to life, a window opened, and you could enter somebody else’s little world for a singular moment. The narration provided context to the images with comments on fine details and things we cannot see in frame bring reality and humanity to those memories as if they could have belonged to someone you knew.

With 35mm slides no longer being produced the piece underlined that they should be cherished and looked after. 

There was a sense of custodianship for us to keep the memories alive and illuminated, to preserve these valuable objects. 

Although these slides were found by Adam and Gillian after being discarded, forgotten or lost, what they have created with them is a communal archive which will be remembered, cherished and shared for others create their own stories.