Photograph: Placards from demonstrations across the UK, 2010 – 2012 (Digital collage) © Simon Roberts

As part of this year’s Format Photography Festival I will be exhibiting an eclectic collection of original protest placards collected from UK demonstrations against economic cuts.

The placards form part of my Let This Be A Sign series and will be exhibited in Derby’s stunning Silk Mill building, which stands on the site of the world’s first factory and is the gateway to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Trade Union artefacts from The Silk Mill collection will also be on display.The museum is the location of the historic ‘Derby Turn Out‘ when the silk workers, supported by their colleagues in other trades, left work from November 1833 to March 1834 to defend the right to combine in a Trade Union.

For more information, visit http://www.formatfestival.com/artists/simon-roberts

As part of the exhibition, we’ve also organised a Placard Making Workshop. So what would you protest about? Taking inspiration from ‘Let this be a sign’ you can make your own placard, photograph yourself and upload the images to Derby At Work. The event is being run in collaboration with Guy Atkins from Make The March and 50K Club.

The workshop will take place on-

16 March 10.00 – 16:00

17 March 13:00 – 16:00

You can find out more here- http://www.formatfestival.com/events/make-your-own-placard-workshop.

Photograph: Amerta Movement Workshop, Avebury Henge, Wiltshire, 2nd June 2008
© Simon Roberts, from We English

Positive View Foundation has unveiled details of its next major exhibition to be held at London’s Somerset House in London this March – a sweeping overview of the rich genre of 21st Century Landscape photography. The novel exhibition is the first of its kind anywhere to show both the harsh, even brutal realities of the changing environment, as well as its enduring and stunning beauty.

                 
The exhibition will include several of my prints from We English and XXX Olympiad. There is more information available here.

‘Landmark: the Fields of Photography’ is a wide-ranging and ground-breaking exhibition featuring more than 70 of the world’s most highly regarded photographers from North and South America, Africa, Europe and Asia, with many of them showcasing previously unseen and recently completed works. The exhibition will run from 14th March – 28th April 2013 and is curated by the globally respected curator, William A. Ewing.

Focusing on our rapidly changing planet, ‘Landmark: the Fields of Photography’ features more than 170 original works of art taken by enterprising photographers employing technology ranging from 19th Century plate-camera techniques to the use of planes, drones, robots and even satellites to capture vivid images of earth’s varied terrain – and even distant planets. Many of the major names in photography are represented: Mitch Epstein, Nadav Kandar, Ryan McGinley, Robert Adams, Simon Norfolk, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Lee Friedlander, Simon Roberts, Toshio Shibata, Robert Polidori and many others contributing spectacular imagery. Also featured are striking images by a younger generation of photographers: Pieter Hugo, Susan Evans, Raphael Dallaporta, Penelope Umbrico, Mathieu Bernard-Reymond, and others.

Exhibition hashtag: #LandmarkExhibition

Art13 London is the capital’s new art fair for Modern and Contemporary art, presenting a truly global perspective and showcasing art from 1945 to the present day. The first edition will showcase over 120 leading galleries from 30 different countries and here you will find over a thousand paintings, sculptures, multi-media installations and a special focus on prints and editions as well as photography.

Flowers Gallery will be exhibiting a selection of my work on stand B4.

The inaugural Fair will take place at Olympia Grand Hall in West London from 1-3 March 2013 (VIP day: 28 February 2013).

Olympia Grand Hall
Hammersmith Road
Kensington
London W14 8UX

For visitor enquiries please contact:
[email protected]

You can view a catalogue online here.

Flowers Gallery will be exhibiting my ‘The Election Project’ work alongside the work of Nicola Green. Nicola will be exhibiting ‘In Seven Days….’ her series produced as artist in residence on the Obama election campaign in 2008.

You can find out more about the exhibition here. We were both interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row program recently, discussing our differing approaches to documenting the electoral process. You can listen in here.

I’m delighted to say that copies of my specially produced newspaper will be available at the exhibition.

Flowers will also be exhibiting two painting shows in their London gallery spaces:

Boyd and Evans Paintings, Flowers – Kingsland Road: 14 February – 13 April 2013

Claerwen James, Flowers – Cork Street, 13 February – 16 March 2013

Image: Blackpool High Street, 2008 © Simon Roberts.

I will be giving a talk at the University of Nottingham, School of Geography as part of their research seminar program.

ALL WELCOME!

For any queries about the seminar please contact: [email protected]

The School is at the forefront of research into Cultural Geography. Work by Stephen Daniels , David Matless, Briony McDonagh, Susanne Seymour and Charles Watkins has explored the relationship between the design, representation and experience of landscape and the formation of personal, local, national and imperial identities in England from the 16th century to the present day. This longstanding English focus in work at Nottingham has been supplemented by Alex Vasudevan’s research on the landscapes of contemporary photography

 

 

An exhibition of We English will be on show at the Phos cultural centre in Torino, Italy from 31st January to 1st March 2013.

Join us for the opening on January 31st 2013, 6.30 pm.

Please see the centre’s website for more details- http://www.phosfotografia.com/en/event/we-english/

An exhibition of Pierdom, curated by Claudio Composti, will be on show at MC2 Gallery in Milan, Italy, from 30 January 2013 – 22 February 2013. A small selection of

prints from XXX Olympiad will also be exhibited.

For more information, visit the gallery’s website here.

An associated exhibition of We English prints will be on show during the same period at Phos cultural centre in Torino, Italy. For details visit their website here.

 

 

We English and a selection of prints from Pierdom are currently being exhibited at 4RT Contemporary in Lausanne, Switzerland.

I will be doing an artist talk on behalf of the North East Photography Network at the Mining Institute in Newcastle on 5th December to discuss my practice and recent projects.  The talk will start at 18.30 and will be followed by refreshments in the Library.

The event is free however booking is requested. Please register via eventbrite here.

 

I will be exhibiting work from Let This Be a Sign at the Fotodoks festival in Munich.

This year’s FotoDoks 2012 exhibition will be displayed in the acclaimed from 17 October until 25th November.

The festival brings together the work of fifteen photographers-

Polly BRADEN (GB)
Marcus BRANDT (D)
Edmund CLARK (GB)
Thomas GALLER (CH)
Jocelyn BAIN HOGG (GB)
Kai LÖFFELBEIN (D)
Robin MADDOCK (GB)
Henrik MALMSTRÖM (D)
Dawin MECKEL (D)
Simon NORFOLK (GB)
Dana POPA (GB)
Simon ROBERTS (GB)
Gregor SCHLATTE (A)
Kai WIEDENHÖFER (D)
Mathias ZIEGLER (D)

The theme this year is ACHTUNG?! – respect, control, change. The German word “Achtung“ (attention, or “take care!”, “careful!”) is much more than a command or a warning. Striped off its exclamation mark it stands for thoughtful co-existence or the act of valuing or respecting something or someone.

In the context of this year’s exhibition and award, the title ACHTUNG?! – respect, control, change demands answers to the predicaments that face today’s documentary photography and its protagonists: What responsibility does a photographer have for both, the medium and his or her subjects? Which topics deserve a photographer’s focus? Who controls pictures and how do  pictures control the world?

FotoDoks is an organisation promoting and developing the field of contemporary documentary photography and bodies of work that deal with political and social issues facing the world we are living in.