I recently had the pleasure of talking with Peter Holliday on his podcast, The Land Behind where he speaks with a range of guests including photographers, musicians and anthropologists as he explores questions of photography, perception and place.
My episode is titled ‘Landscape Representation as Social Commentary’ and I talk about my experience photographing England’s social landscape in the decade preceding Brexit.
You can listen in here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3WqV34eTCTny5DjLz7VMkT?si=1dd8f4f2ab094aa7&nd=1
About England is a new publication by David Matless, Professor of Cultural Geography at the University of Nottingham. The book explores how ‘England’ and ‘Englishness’ have been imagined since the 1960s, and includes sevearl references to my photographs in We English and Merrie Albion.
‘England’ and ‘Englishness’ have received much attention in the twenty-first century, not least in debates over Brexit. About England explores how these concepts have been imagined since the 1960s, covering themes including politics, popular culture, geography, art, architecture, film and music.
David Matless navigates the country’s complex cultural terrain, revealing the ways in which the national is entangled with the local, the regional, the European, the international, the imperial, the post-imperial and the global. He also addresses physical landscapes, from the village and country house to the urban, suburban and industrial, and reflects on the ‘English modern’. About England uncovers the genealogy of recent cultural and political debates in England, showing how twenty-first-century concerns and anxieties have been moulded by events over the previous sixty years.
He is also the author of Landscape and Englishness (1998), an influential study of cultures of landscape in twentieth century England.
1 April 2023
9781789146912
245 mm x 165 mm | 360 pages
62 illustrations
Hardback | £20
Island Life draws upon photographs from the Martin Parr Foundation collection to show the changing fabric of our cities, society and collective identities. Focusing on post-war from the UK and Ireland, the exhibition will bring together images by over 60 photographers including Khali Ackford, Pogus Caesar, Elaine Constantine, Sian Davey, Chris Killip, David Hurn, Ken Grant, Markéta Luskačová, Graham Smith, Simon Roberts and Tom Wood. Collectively the images form a compelling study of national behaviour.
The exhibition includes photographs which document moments of historical significance including the poll tax riot, the Aberfan mine disaster and most recently, the BLM movement. These will be displayed alongside images depicting the everyday – weddings, shopping, football and Butlin’s holidays. Island Life traces the evolution of documentary photography in Britain, the photographers who influenced Parr and the younger generation he is influencing in turn.
Included in the exhibition is my photograph: Holy Island of Lindisfarne, Northumberland, 2nd September 2008 from the series, We English.
Find out more here: https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/bristol-museum-and-art-gallery/whats-on/bristol-photo-festival-island-life-martin-parr/
I have a few prints included in this exhibition of work taken from the Great Ormond Street Art Collection.
More details here:
I have several prints included in this group exhibition at Side Gallery in Newcastle.
Some of this country’s most compelling documentary photography has been about the North of England. Explore the role it plays – both as conversation with communities and arguments with power – in this exhibition of major historical and contemporary photography. Drawing on Side Gallery’s own extraordinary collections as well as other key works, you’ll delve into a tradition that continues to shape perceptions of the wider North.
Photo: Detail from Brighton Beach, 2007
Opening in March 2018, The Great British Seaside: Photography from the 1960s to the present is a major new exhibition exploring Britain’s relationship with the seaside through the lenses of the nation’s best loved photographers, Martin Parr, Tony Ray-Jones, David Hurn and Simon Roberts.
Many of us in Britain look back with fondness on memories of paddles in the sea and picnics on the promenade. Yet the seaside can also be a place of faded glory and acute deprivation. These tensions have provided fertile ground for documentary photographers who have sought to capture the ambiguities and eccentricities that define a day at the British seaside.
Read an article in The British Journal of Photography about the show, Celebrating the seaside at the National Maritime Museum.
Discover the lives and careers of Martin Parr, Tony Ray-Jones, David Hurn, and Simon Roberts and hear in their own words what draws them to the seaside, Photographers at the seaside.
Buy the accompanying book here, The Great British Seaside: Photography from the 1960s to the Present. Published to accompany the 2018 National Maritime Museum exhibition The Great British Seaside: Photography from the 1960s to the Present, this book showcases over 100 photographs, including material from each of the photographers’ archival collections, newly commissioned works, and never-before-seen images.
Image: Detail of ‘South Downs Way, East Sussex, 2007’ from the series, We English
British Landscape and the Imagination: 1970s to Now
I have several pieces included in this group show, an Arts Council Collection National Partner Exhibition running from 30 SEP – 21 JAN 2018.
This major survey exhibition focuses on artists who have shaped our understanding of the British landscape and its relationship to identity, place and time. Exploring how artists interpret urban and rural landscape through the lens of their own cultural, political or spiritual ideologies, the exhibition reveals the inherent tensions between landscape represented as a transcendental or spiritual place, and one rooted in social and political histories.
Though primarily photography, A Green and Pleasant Land includes film, painting and sculpture by over 50 artists, illustrating the various concerns and approaches to landscape pursued by artists from the 1970s to now.
Artists included in the exhibition: Keith Arnatt, Gerry Badger, Craig Barker, John Blakemore, Henry Bond and Liam Gillick, Paul Caponigro, Thomas Joshua Cooper, John Davies, Susan Derges, Mark Edwards, Anna Fox, Melanie Friend, Hamish Fulton, Fay Godwin, Andy Goldsworthy, Paul Graham, Mishka Henner, Paul Hill, Robert Judges, Angela Kelly, Chris Killip, John Kippin, Karen Knorr, Ian Macdonald, Ron McCormick, Mary McIntyre, Peter Mitchell, Raymond Moore, John Myers, Martin Parr, Mike Perry, Ingrid Pollard, Mark Power, Paul Reas, Emily Richardson, Ben Rivers, Simon Roberts, Paul Seawright, Andy Sewell, Theo Simpson, Graham Smith, Jem Southam, Jo Spence, John Stezaker, Paddy Summerfield, The Caravan Gallery, Chris Wainwright, Patrick Ward, Clare Woods and Donovan Wylie.
http://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/exhibition/a-green-and-pleasant-land/
Join us for a one-day symposium accompanying Museums Sheffield’s new exhibition at the Graves Gallery, Street View: Photographs of Urban Life.
Featuring images primarily drawn from Sheffield’s own photographs collection, the exhibition explores the diversity of the street; as a social space, as a battleground for protest and as a source of artistic inspiration. Visitors will discover a range of works which, in many cases, have not been exhibited for over 20 years.
This symposium will contextualise the exhibition within the broader theme of street photography and the long-term development of photography in Sheffield. It also aims to emphasise the importance of UK-wide photography networks to continued development and research in the field. The symposium will offer the first chance to find out about the Photographic Collections Network. This is a new organisation, supported by Arts Council England, for anyone involved with photography archives and collections. It launches in October 2016 and Paul Herrmann, one of the co-founders, will give more information about its aims and plans.
Speakers will include Susanna Brown (Curator, Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum), Simon Roberts (UK-based contemporary photographer), Paul Herrmann (Director, RedEye: The Photography Network and Chairman of the Photographic Collections Network), Paul Hill (UK-based photographer and Professor of Photography) and Ken Phillip (Sheffield-based photographer and former Lecturer of Photography, Sheffield Hallam University).
The symposium will be followed by a special evening viewing of the Street View exhibition 5.45pm-7.45pm with curator Catherine Troiano.
Tickets are priced 12 / £10 concessions and are available now – please book via Eventbrite
For further information please contact Catherine Troiano: [email protected]
My photograph, ‘Fountains Fell, Yorkshire Dales, 2008’, from We English, has just entered the Sheffield Museum Collection and is included in the group show Street View: Photographs of Urban Life.
This exhibition explores how photographers have captured city life on camera in Sheffield, around the UK and abroad, bringing together a series of highlights from the collection, many of which have not been on display for over 20 years.
The invention of smaller, lighter hand-held cameras in the late 19th century enabled photographers to escape the restrictions of the studio and take their practice onto the street. Ever since, the street has appeared in photographs as both a primary subject and an informative backdrop, contextualising the rest of the scene. This exhibition explores the diversity of the street; as a social space, as a battleground for protest and as a source of artistic inspiration.
Street View showcases photographs by both internationally recognised photographers and local artists. The images on display span the everyday to the extraordinary, from familiar depictions of work and leisure to images of national celebration and political activism.
The exhibition is supported by loans from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Hyman Collection.
This exhibition has been organised in partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum, supported by the Art Fund with the assistance of the Foyle Foundation.
An exhibition curated by The Photographers’ Gallery, London, includes a series of my We English prints. It is continuing its tour this summer to Three Shadows Gallery in Xiamen, China from August 16th – October 2016.
Installation view, Work, Rest & Play: British Photography from the 1960s to Today , Three Shadows Photography Centre, Xiamen, China, 2016
Work, Rest & Play is structured chronologically, with the themes of ‘work’, ‘rest’ and ‘play’ providing a backdrop through which to experience the images and the subjects they focus on. This exhibition features over 450 works by thirty-seven acclaimed photographers and artists working across a wide range of genres and disciplines including photojournalism, portraiture, fashion and fine art.
Artists included in the exhibition include Terence Donovan, James Barnor, Linda McCartney, Shirley Baker, Derek Ridgers, Martin Parr, Toby Glanville, Jason Evans, Tim Walker, Nigel Shafran, Lorenzo Vitturi, Melanie Manchot and Simon Roberts, to name a few.
The exhibition has previously been exhibited at OCT-Loft, Shenzhen; Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai and Visual Arts Centre, OCT-Chengdu as part of the 2015 UK-China Year of Culture organized by the British Council.
A specially commissioned essay by writer and historian Lucy Soutter, on the key themes of the show, can be read here. Installation views of the exhibition in Xiamen can be viewed here, alongside documentation of all the other installations of the project.