James Sutherland-Smith: (poet, translator, critic) has published five individual collections of poetry the latest of which, Popeye in Belgrade is published in November 2008 by Carcanet. His previous collections include In the Country of Birds (Carcanet, 2003) and At the Skin Resort (Arc 1998). The poems from the collection At the Skin Resort are located in Eastern Europe and respond to the revolutionary years of 1989 to 1991. James lives in Belgrade. Among the prizes he has received are the first prize in the Peterloo competition (2002) and the Hviezdoslav prize for translating Slovak poetry 2003.

Shamil Khairov: (linguist and photographer) is a member of The Russian Union of Photographic Artists. He has given a number of papers and interviews on Russian photography and has created a course on Russian 20th-Century Visual Culture, which was first given in Ireland and Finland and is currently being taught at Glasgow. He is a lecturer in Russian at Glasgow University. His black-and-white photographs of Russian rural and urban landscapes have taken part in several contests and exhibitions and have been published on the covers of books and in photographic magazines.

PHOTOPOEMS was their joint project which goes back to the early 1990's when they exchanged their creative work for the first time. James writes small poems to Shamil's photographs adding a poetical colour to the images. Some of their joint work has been published in The London Magazine, (December/January 2006) and more is in preparation.

This event was a part of the Cultural Crossings conference held by the University of Glasgow.