Louis Porter's Studio: The London Library as Artistic Archive

Photographer Louis Porter has adopted The London Library as his studio, using its vast collection to explore themes of image circulation, knowledge, and the present. Porter, who joined the library a decade ago, initially sought a quiet place to write his MFA thesis after returning from Australia, but stayed because of the library's millions of photographs. His practice involves recontextualizing found images from archives, creating publications like 'The Anatomy of Business' (2012), 'A Catalogue of a Young Country Ladies Library' (2023), 'Desenho' (2023), and 'Monuments Égyptiens' (2024). He also works with esoteric archives, including The Warburg Institute and The College of Psychic Studies. His 2025 publication 'Search Engine' draws from 60,000 books he examined over 10 years. Porter's work often critiques rationalist systems, drawing parallels between Victorian empiricism and modern AI. He has exhibited at Paris Photo's 2025 Emergence sector with 'The Appearance of Distance' (2024). The library, founded in 1841 after Thomas Carlyle's call, remains in St James's Square and holds over one million publications.