Cultivist Conversations with William Josephs Radford

In 2024, photographer William Josephs Radford lost his father. In the two years that followed, he made five bodies of work, each with its own visual language and each tied to a different stage of grief. Transparent is the last of them. Working from the family albums, William spent six months removing his father from childhood photographs and rebuilding the spaces he left behind, then recreated each image as a lenticular print in the classic 6×4 snapshot size. Tilt it one way and his father is there. Tilt it the other and he’s gone.

We spoke with William about acceptance, what happens when an in-camera photographer hands part of the process to AI, the memories his family holds differently, and how he’d like to see the whole series shown.

You've described Transparent as starting out as an attempt to find your father in the family archive, and ending up as an attempt to take him out of it. When did that shift happen, and did you know at that point this would be the final chapter?

Since the project's release, I've been asked why I chose to remove my father from these photographs rather than add him to others. Quite frankly, it never crossed my mind until someone asked. In much the same way, it never occurred to me that perhaps there aren't many photographs of him because he was always the one behind the camera; that if only camera timers had existed back then, he might have been in every image.

This is the strange thing about memory: you don't consciously notice a shift happening until someone asks a question that challenges your frame of reference. I knew this would be the final project the moment I started scanning the photographs. Loosely based on the five stages of grief, I saw this final chapter as an embodiment of acceptance.

Your practice has been built on in-camera techniques like light painting and lens masking, and you've generally resisted post-production. What was it like to use generative tools for this chapter, and were there moments when the software pushed back on what you were trying to do?

I'd describe the process as a form of curation. In fact, it has led me to consider a follow-up project exploring artificial intelligence from an entirely different perspective. Rather than giving AI prompts to follow, I'd become the vessel through which it creates, giving it a physical body with which to realise its ideas.

The premise is simple: tell AI it can create whatever artwork it likes, list the materials at your disposal, and let it prompt you on what to make. It completely inverts our relationship with the tool. I love the idea of following its instructions, constantly checking back in and interpreting its prompts to the best of my ability, much as it does when following mine. It would be an opportunity to relinquish control and see what emerges when the roles of artist and tool are reversed.

Most technology around grief tries to bring people back, through things like digital avatars. You used it to subtract instead. Why removal, and did the six months spent rebuilding those empty spaces become a kind of mourning in itself?

For me, addition doesn't feel like acceptance; it feels like denial, a manifestation of the inability to let go. Removing my father from these images was undeniably an act of mourning in itself, one that required a genuine degree of acceptance to carry out. Rather than attempting to restore his presence, I had to confront his absence, working through each image until I could accept the space he no longer occupied.

You kept the 6×4 snapshot size and chose lenticular prints, so your father appears and disappears depending on how the viewer moves. What do you hope people feel in that moment, and has making the work changed how you look at the original albums?

It's been interesting to see the mixed reactions in the comments. By touching on something as universally challenging as the loss of a loved one, I believe the project has become a conduit through which people can channel their own grief. The responses have ranged from outright disgust to profound empathy. I don't expect the work to evoke a universal feeling, but I hope it opens up a dialogue that allows people to confront their grief in a way that feels personal to them.

I've always believed there is no right way to interpret an artwork. For some, it simply brings Back to the Future to mind, which is just as valid as any other response to a work exploring what it means to grieve in the modern world.

As for the original photographs, the project has completely reshaped how I see them. I can no longer look at them without picturing my father slowly fading in and out of each image.

The series also explores how much of childhood we actually remember and how much we inherit through family stories. How has your family responded to the work, and did their memories of those moments differ from yours?

The main disparity lies in my father's participation throughout our childhood. I've always known that my mother played a bigger role in raising my sister and me, but it's a difficult fact to acknowledge in his absence. It feels as though I'm taking something away from his presence in the moments when he was there.

The family album only reinforces this account of events, but it's almost impossible to count and compare the memories you have with each parent. It's like trying to count which foot has taken more steps. Both play an equal part in moving us forward, yet one of them has probably taken more steps than the other.

Each of the five chapters uses a different visual language, from Vaseline on the lens in White Knight to daily skies in Mourning Routine. Are there plans to exhibit the series, and how would you want it shown: as five separate bodies of work, or as a single journey? Does Transparent need to be held in the hand to work, or can it live on a wall?

This is probably my favourite question, as it gives me the opportunity to express my desire to exhibit the project physically. I don't have any definitive plans at the moment, but it's something I'm very keen to bring to life.

I see the five projects as a journey, one whose layout could evolve throughout the exhibition to reflect the different stages of grief. I'd begin with the clean-cut frames of the White Knight series: a formal introduction to the site of mourning, almost funerary in its presentation. From there, I'd move towards more chaotic arrangements of unframed pieces, scattered randomly throughout the space. These would reflect the gradual relinquishing of formality and control over the grieving process, as expressed through Gradient Loss and Residual Noise.

I particularly like the idea of displaying the Mourning Routine segment on a screen framed by a replica of the window it was shot through. Because the images were taken from a single viewpoint, it feels fitting to present them within the same timber frame that originally restricted the view.

Finally, we come to Transparent, which could be displayed in a number of ways. When creating the work, I was conscious of retaining enough detail to allow the images to be exhibited at a larger scale than the original 6×4-inch prints. However, I also love the idea of presenting it as a photo album that viewers can flick through, watching my father fade away with every turn of the page.

Transparent closes a five-part series that also includes White Knight, Gradient Loss, Residual Noise, and Mourning Routine. There’s no exhibition confirmed yet, but we hope that changes soon, ideally with that photo album on a plinth for visitors to go through like one of their own. In the meantime, you can see more of William’s work at josephsradford.com and on Instagram at @josephsradford

All images are courtesy of William Josephs Radford and Gertrude Art, © William Josephs Radford.