Untitled #4, 1989
Boffin (b.1960 - d. 1993 London, UK) was a pioneering artist and a key organising figure in the UK's photography scene, working between the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Despite a brief oeuvre, Boffin developed a complex body of photographic work which explored gender, sex positivity and societal and political issues referring to AIDS. In staged scenes Boffin championed lesbian visibility and the actualization of queer identity through explorations of fantasy. Boffin had a bold, ground-breaking practice at a time of little visual representation and acknowledgement of queer desire. In imaginative discovery, she deconstructed historical heterosexual role models, combining fact and story to reimagine them. Deftly weaving historical references, critical theory and wit to propose an alternative space of exploration.
Boffin gained a BA (Hons) Degree in Photographic Arts (Theory and Practice) from Polytechnic of Central London (now University of Westminster) in 1986 and an MA in Critical Theory from University of Sussex, UK. She was an active part of a community of photographers, curating and featuring in many exhibitions. In 1990 she co-curated the seminal exhibition, Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS mythology with Sunil Gupta and the major touring exhibition Stolen Glances: Lesbians Take Photographs in 1991 with Jean Fraser. The accompanying books to those exhibitions remain of critical importance, Ecstatic Antibodies contributed to the understanding of images in the AIDS crisis and Stolen Glances is a guide to lesbian photography of the time. More recently, Boffin is the subject of the national touring exhibition Where We Touch the Archive, opening at Devonshire Collective, Eastbourne, UK, before travelling to BACKLIT, Nottingham, UK (18 September–17 October 2026); Photoworks Festival, Brighton, UK (2–18 October 2026); and Aspex, Portsmouth, UK (2 December 2026–28 February 2027). In 2023, Hales New York presented the solo exhibition Tessa Boffin: 1989–1993.
Her work has also been included in major group exhibitions including Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK (2024); The 80s: Photographing Britain, Tate Britain, London, UK (2024); Every Moment Counts – AIDS and its Feelings, Henie Onstad Art Center, Bærum, Norway (2022); The Rebel Dykes Art & Archive Show, Space Station Sixty-Five, London, UK (2021); Hot Moment, Auto Italia South East, London, UK (2020); and Resist: be modern (again), John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK (2019).