In Between Gallery: The Snail and the Mannequin

Emma Collins presents The Snail and the Mannequin, a photographic series exploring uncanny domestic spaces and the tension between belonging and displacement. About Showing from June until autumn 2026 is Emma Collins's image, taken from her series The Snail and the Mannequin. These photographs were made in the artist's family home, with scenes constructed in familiar rooms where something feels slightly off: small details that don't sit quite right, and ordinary moments that begin to shift into something stranger. Natural materials such as soil, roots, grass, branches and shells recur throughout the work. While they carry associations of grounding and belonging, once brought into the home and removed from their natural context, these associations shift, producing a sense of unease and reflecting how attempts to root ourselves can generate both stability and dislocation. The work also draws on Freud's idea of the uncanny, in which the home - typically understood as safe and familiar - can become unfamiliar or unsettling. Using the home as a setting, Emma brings together people, everyday objects and elements in ways that don't quite sit comfortably. At times the images are more overtly staged or playful, while at others the strangeness emerges more quietly, through a gesture or detail. These ideas extend into Emma's commercial practice as a family photographer, where she describes herself as standing slightly on the outside, even when invited into people's homes, "I am not part of their family structure, I am there as a witness. From this position, people tend to let their guard down, and what emerges is often very ordinary, but also authentic, awkward, and sometimes unexpectedly strange or funny. I'm not trying to resolve that feeling of unease in either practice. It's those moments of slight discomfort, strangeness, and ambiguity that really interest me and shape the work." Emma Collins was selected for The In Between Gallery via the Resonance exhibition open call, produced in partnership with Sussex Contemporary. Read more Toggle Mixed media Photography