New Torchlit Art Experience in Portland’s Victorian Tunnels

Peter Anderson
June 23, 2025

DISCOVER WHAT’S HIDDEN

– b-side launches Underground Gallery at Portland’s High Angle Battery

Descend into Portland’s historic High Angle Battery this June and explore an extraordinary torchlit exhibition of contemporary photography. Underground Gallery, presented by b-side, runs from 26th-29th June 2025, daily from 11am to 6pm, and features works by artists from Portland and around the world. Visitors are encouraged to navigate the tunnels by torchlight, revealing each artwork gradually, an experience that enhances the themes of the hidden and the rediscovered.

Rocca Holly-Nambi, director of b-side, said: “This is an invitation to uncover what’s been buried – whether histories, perspectives or people. The High Angle Battery is the perfect location for an exhibition like this evoking a real sense of discovery as you move through the dark tunnels. We’re proud of the collaboration with LGBT+side, coinciding with Pride this month. It’s important that these voices are heard, and we hope that this exhibition helps to shine a light on the talent and community we have here in Portland. The setting, the artists, and the way you experience the work, all come together in a truly unique and powerful way.”

Underground Gallery brings together 21 international artists, selected through an open call, responding to the idea of what lies hidden – be it physical, social, or emotional. Installed deep within the Battery’s dark stone chambers and tunnels, the exhibition invites visitors to literally and metaphorically illuminate the unseen. The show explores themes of the overlooked, the marginal, and aspects of otherness – both in place and identity. Tying in with Pride this month, the exhibition is co-curated by Gil Mualem-Doron and b-side’s LGBT+ side group, who issued an international open call for artists to submit photographic work that interrogates ideas of visibility. and marginalisation

Gil Mualem-Doron also presents “No Man’s Land”, a compelling ongoing art photography project that employs a collaborative approach to convey the stories of male-identified individuals in limbo situations due to political, social, mental, or economic factors. “In this project, I have sought to diminish the control I hold as a photographer over the photographic process and its outcomes, largely relinquishing it to the subjects. This effort aims to give the subjects greater agency in how their stories are told.”

Featured artists include:
Anna Archinger (Denmark), Artem Humilevskyi (Ukraine), Bethany Chamberlain (UK), Crisia Constantine (Australia), Daniel Sands (UK), Dave Warren (UK), Gugulethu Ndlalani (South Africa), Lukasz Izdebski (UK), Martin Roberts (UK), Monika Ruiz-B (France), NC Hernandez (Mexico), Olana Light (UK), Richard Gibson (Georgia), Sara Harpley (UK), Sophie Meyer (UK), Susanna Rachel (UK), Tilda Tribbeck (UK), Vitali Zhykharau (Belarus), Yollande Posthummus (UK), ZD Hoopaugh (USA), and Gil Mualem-Doron (UK).