Sanctum: At Home with the Uncanny
Sanctum is an anti-interiors book, a compilation of 10 years of the kind of work created in tandem with commercial editorial projects. These focus on the aspects of stories that editors think would unnerve their readers. What does the uncanny mean to you? It is about people who see themselves as custodians rather than owners of houses; ghosts, love stories, and art and design created and collected in these unique spaces. Every home has a singular energy. Most importantly Sanctum is about the people in these places, now and in the past. It’s also an homage to In Praise of Shadows by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, which explores the beauty of imperfection.
Speaker Bio:
Mark C. O’Flaherty is a design writer and photographer for a wide range of publications, including the Financial Times, World of Interiors and House & Garden. He grew up in London and spent the last decade splitting his time between Europe and New York. In the 1990s he worked in fashion show production and was a music photographer and DJ. He is the author and photographer of Narrative Thread: Conversations on Fashion Collections (2023, Bloomsbury). markcoflaherty.com
Image: Portrait by Ruth Hogben.
Cover image by Mark, Sanctum: At Home with the Uncanny is published by Thames & Hudson.
Curated & Hosted by
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon
Don’t worry if you can’t make the talk live on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
