Just Another Saturday Night
- ArtBomb
- Nov 11
- 2 min read
Ric Woolrich
Exhibiting at ArtBomb 15-30 November 2025
Under the dim glow of pub lights, a ritual plays out: familiar, messy, and deeply human. Just Another Saturday Night is a black-and-white photographic series documenting nightlife in a single pub in Doncaster, England, The Queens Craft House, but it could be any pub in any town. These spaces become both refuge and stage, where people gather week after week to reconnect, perform, escape, and endure.
Shot using flash and a wide-angle lens, the images exaggerate facial expressions and body language, amplifying the tension between outer energy and inner emotion. On the surface there is laughter, dancing, and intimacy. But look closer and subtler narratives appear: repetition, emotional fatigue, and isolation within the crowd.
The series celebrates grassroots venues as vital cultural lifelines. These spaces are more than backdrops; they are where friendships are made, identities performed, and a sense of community quietly sustained. In a time when such venues face increasing economic pressure, the work pays tribute to their resilience and necessity.
Influenced by British social documentary traditions, including the work of Chris Coekin and Chris Killip, and the raw intimacy of Nan Goldin, the series explores themes of social survival, post-pandemic recovery, and the complexity of being together. It reflects on how joy and loneliness coexist, how sociability is sometimes worn like armour, and how we use routine to navigate uncertainty.
Just Another Saturday Night invites viewers to recognise these scenes from their own lives. It is not just a record of a night out, but a reflection on how we gather, cope, and search for belonging again and again, in places that ask nothing of us but to show up.
