To coincide with the upcoming General Election, Photofusion are pleased to present The Election Project by Simon Roberts.
9 April – 22 May 2015
LAUNCH PARTY
Thursday 16 April, 18.30 – 21.00
In 2010, Roberts was selected as the official British Election Artist, an appointment made by the House of Commons and commissioned by the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, to create an historic record of the UK General Election. Simon was the first photographic artist to be chosen.
Roberts’ exhibition at Photofusion will feature a selection of the large-format colour tableaux photographs from the final 25 images that form the project in its entirety, each having represented a day spent on the campaign (plus a final image capturing an extra day focused on the coalition talks).
As an antithetic yet complementary accompaniment to the work, Roberts also encouraged public participation in the project. He invited people to visually express their opinions on the campaign by uploading their own photographs to a special website created for the purpose (www.theelectionproject.co.uk).
A selection of the 1,696 images submitted will be presented on a monitor within the gallery and Photofusion will set up a live twitter feed for the public to add their 2015 election photographs under the hashtag #theelectionproject.
Simon will be doing an in-conversation at the gallery with Paul Halliday on Tuesday 12 May, 19.00
Download a press release here
Image: ‘Penri James, Plaid Cymru, Aberwyswyth, 24th April 2010’ from The Election Project by Simon Roberts/ courtesy of Parliamentary Art Collection
Photofusion is grateful to the Parliamentary Art Collection who kindly loaned the works for exhibition.
Today Ed Miliband takes to the stage to deliver his Leader’s Speech at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Brighton. This address during the annual conference season is much like an annual performance review when all major party leader’s are scrutinised under the glare of the media microscope.
Here’s one I took earlier; the set-piece Leader’s Speech at Labour’s 2011 Party Conference in Liverpool.
You can read today’s speech, along with an archive of UK Political Party speeches on the Total Politics website here.
Photograph: Nigel Farage, UK Independence Party, Buckingham, 5th May 2010 © Simon Roberts, from The Election Project
After UKIP’s surge in the polls in the Eastleigh byelection this week, Andrew Rawnsley writes in today’s Observer “Nigel Farage is the ebullient face on a rackety gang which attracts some very strange characters and is riddled with faction-fighting. Its policy prospectus would be torn to shreds if anything like it was ever offered by any of the main parties. Ukip’s literature in Eastleigh promised tax cuts for “everyone” and more spending on everything from the restoration of student grants to more generous pensions to more prisons. It must be the only party to be led by people who still believe in Santa Claus.”
My Election Project series can currently be seen on the wall at Flowers Gallery in London.
This week I was interviewed along with artist Nicola Green for BBC Radio 4″s Front Row arts programme. The feature was exploring “what does an artist see in an election campaign?”
Nicola Green was discussing her role as an artist in resident during Barack Obama”s 2008 presidential campaign, while I was asked about my official Election Artist for the UK”s 2010 General Election. We discussed our experiences of following politicians on the campaign trail.
You can hear the interview online here or download an mp3 file (5mb) here.
Green”s series, “In Seven Days…” is currently on show at the in Liverpool, whilst you can see my Election Project series in Parliament by contacting the Curator”s office at the Palace of Westminster.
Image: Polling station, Goodman Park, Slough, 6th May 2010 © Simon Roberts from The Election Project