Sean McKenzie: The Night Shift

Pale Horse presents Sean McKenzie (b.1990) The Night Shift, an exhibition of photographs and sculptures from the artist’s series Switchboard. This group of works was developed in response to the historic archives of ‘Switchboard’, a volunteer-run helpline that has provided 24/7 support to LGBTQ+ communities since 1974. McKenzie’s practice centres on locating and understanding queer histories through rigorous archival research and acts of re-creation. Working across sculpture and photography, he constructs life-size sets by hand, from materials such as polystyrene, paint and fabric, which he subsequently photographs; producing singular images that sit between documentation and imagination. McKenzie’s Switchboard series invites engagement with the emotional and political dimensions of queer life across generations, whilst quietly foregrounding the power of community-led care.

Initially launched as the ‘London Gay Switchboard’, the telephone helpline was founded several years after the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. Operated by volunteers across twenty-four hours, it provided a vital line of support, care and connection. At its inception, volunteers recorded details of calls in handwritten logbooks, which are now archived at the Bishopsgate Institute. McKenzie’s research into the archive forms the foundation of this body of work. Often drawing on specific details found in the call logs, McKenzie re-creates fragments of select narratives, honouring each deeply personal call with a semi-fictional reality. His meticulous, handmade life-size environments offer a tangible expression to the emotive verbal archive.

It is the hand-built nature of these sets which subtly disrupts the cool realism of McKenzie’s final images, revealing their entirely constructed nature. As the viewer spends time with the photographs, slippages and imperfections abound; an awareness of the tactility of surfaces and the fragility of the hand-made sculptures begins to permeate the images’ initial apparent slickness. Consequently, as the images’ fictional status expands, so too does their emotional capacity, with the delicate intimacy of these personal narratives and histories superseding the presumed detached objectivity.

Switchboard is the UK’s LGBTQIA+ support line. To this day, every phone call, instant message, or email is answered by a volunteer from the LGBTQIA+ community. Switchboard (previously, London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard) was founded on March 4th 1974. At its inception, the information and support helpline operated for 5 hours every evening above a bookshop in London near Kings Cross station. Due to rapidly increasing demand, it very quickly became 24-hours. Switchboard estimates that they have provided support and information to more than 4 million people since their service began.

Maria liked Peter’s entries the most. He writes in black fountain pen with beautiful cursive letters that angle to the right. Maria had never seen handwriting in italic before. Peter’s most recent message centered around his distaste for the decaffeinated coffee in the kitchen and concern for the dwindling supply of copy paper in the stationary cupboard. At the end of the message, he mentioned a caller, a young man, 17 and homeless. Peter had given the caller the name of a local boarding house that accepts lost youth. He referred to the caller by the initials C.N. Maria's heart rate quickened. She stared at Peter's entry, reading it again, word for word, forensically. She reached for the rolodex and flipped through their list of boarding houses, noting down on a scrap of paper the one Peter mentioned, followed by his description, young man, 17, C.N. Maria folded the piece of paper and placed it tightly into her purse. 

Those three descriptors were enough to convince Maria that the caller was her brother. Her heart still racing, she closed her eyes and pictured him calling. The phone pressed against his right ear, the other end suspended in front of his delicate chin. The way his voice might sound, aged since the last time she’d heard it. Maria inhaled and exhaled deeply, methodically. She flipped to a fresh page in the log book and in her best handwriting, wrote the date followed by her first name, assuming she too would have something to add to the log. She spent the next hours waiting for calls, flipping back to Peter's entry periodically in case there was something she missed. Sitting alone in the late hours under the dimmed light of a desk lamp made time feel endless. The hope that Peter’s message might somehow lead to her brother was enough to summon him like a hallucination. Memories of him glowing in her mind. When the phone finally rang, Maria paused before reaching for it, afraid that the moment she answered, he might disappear again.

— Sean McKenzie

Sean McKenzie (b.1990, Sale, VIC, Australia) lives and works in London. McKenzie works across sculpture and photography. His practice centres on locating and understanding queer histories through rigorous archival research and acts of re-creation. Utilising his research as the foundation for his images, McKenzie constructs life-size sets and environments by hand, which he subsequently photographs; producing singular images that sit between documentation and imagination. A work from the artist’s Switchboard series was recently on display at the Museum of Australian Photography, however this series has never before been shown in London. The Night Shift also marks the first public presentation of elements from McKenzie’s sets, shown here as sculptures in their own right.

McKenzie has exhibited with Der Greif; Munich (2024), Museum of Australian Photography; Australia (2025), and has been featured in The Royal Photographic Society Journal (2024, 2026). McKenzie was a 2024 recipient of the The Royal Photographic Society Post-Graduate bursary and in 2025 was shortlisted for The Bowness Photography Prize.