This year’s festival, called Terra Cognita, transcends photographic genres to sketch a picture of the relation between man and nature, on the basis of the work of 115 photographers. Terra Cognita is about the experience of nature, in all its manifestations, from tactile, living and breathing nature, to the nature of our thoughts, its dreamed and fantastic incarnations. Although man sometimes seems to be hardly present in the photos, he has unmistakably left his stamp on it. In all this work the landscape reveals the emotions and thoughts that the photographer has projected on it. The diverse and complex ways in which we see and experience landscapes – the nature in our genes and our minds – echo through the breadth of Terra Cognita. From timeless black and white to conceptual or computer generated, the blending of genres is total. Like nature itself, this is an exhibition not just to be seen, but to be experienced.
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An interview I did with Lars Boering during De Donkere Kamer #12 at Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam, where I discuss my practice, projects and books. September 17, 2012.
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I’m part of this group exhibition – Observers: Photographers of the British Scene from the 1930’s to now – at Galeria de Arte do Sesi in Sao Paulo about British photography, organised by the British Council and curated by Joao Kulcsar in San Paulo and Martin Caiger-Smith in London.
This is the first exhibition ever staged in Brazil to chart a course through British photography in modern times. It spans almost a century - from the new photographic directions of the 20s and 30s that developed alongside the emergence of mass media, to the diverse practice of today’s image-laden world – and features the work of many of Britain’s most significant, celebrated and influential photographers.
The exhibition takes Britain itself as subject - its society and culture, places and people – presenting the work of those photographers who, rather than looking at the world beyond or at inner worlds, focused their attention on their own country – on the customs, character and conditions of those around them . As such, it explores a fertile and dominant strand of subject matter, changing over the century – a swathe of British social and cultural history – and a broad tradition of documentary practice which has always been at the core of British photography.
Around 30 photographers are included, each represented by a number of photographs drawn from significant projects or series; including Cecil Beaton, Bill Brandt, Humphrey Spender, George Rodger, Paul Nash, Madame Yevonde, Nigel Henderson, Roger Mayne, Ida Kar, Norman Parkinson, Terence Donovan, Ian Berry, Shirley Baker, Tony Ray-Jones, Raymond Moore, Paul Trevor, Tish Murtha, Daniel Meadows, Chris Killip, Martin Parr, Paul Graham, Keith Arnatt, Anna Fox, Derek Ridgers, Peter Fraser, Jem Southam, Karen Knorr, Richard Billingham, Paul Seawright, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jason Evans, Nigel Shafran, Rut Blees Luxemburg, Sarah Jones, John Duncan, Gareth McConnell.
I’m represented with some prints from We English.
Significant publications – photo books and illustrated magazines, will be included in a documentary section alongside, and there is potential for an accompanying programme of documentary film which would extend the scope of the exhibition and point to significant moments of intersection between documentary photography and film, particularly in the 30s, 60s and 80s, and now.
You can read an article by curator John Kulcsár here.
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This year’s festival, called Terra Cognita, transcends photographic genres to sketch a picture of the relation between man and nature, on the basis of the work of 115 photographers. Terra Cognita is about the experience of nature, in all its manifestations, from tactile, living and breathing nature, to the nature of our thoughts, its dreamed and fantastic incarnations. Although man sometimes seems to be hardly present in the photos, he has unmistakably left his stamp on it. In all this work the landscape reveals the emotions and thoughts that the photographer has projected on it. The diverse and complex ways in which we see and experience landscapes – the nature in our genes and our minds – echo through the breadth of Terra Cognita. From timeless black and white to conceptual or computer generated, the blending of genres is total. Like nature itself, this is an exhibition not just to be seen, but to be experienced.
This symposium at the V&A is a fantastic opportunity to explore the complex presence of the past, national identity, taste and nostalgia in relation to the Recording Britain collection of water colours and drawings produced at the start of World War II with both art historians and practicing artists. Speakers include Patrick Wright, David Heathcote, and artists Ingrid Pollard, Abigail Reynolds, Simon Roberts and Paul Scott. At the outbreak of the Second World War an ambitious scheme was set up to employ artists on the home front. The result was a collection of more than 1500 watercolours and drawings that make up a fascinating record of British lives and landscapes at a time of imminent change. Recording Britain was the brainchild of Sir Kenneth Clark, who saw it as an extension of the Official War Artist scheme. By choosing watercolour painting as the medium of record, Clark hoped that the scheme would also help to preserve this characteristic English art form – you can find out more about the scheme here.
20/04/2012 – 20/04/2012
10:30 – 17:30
V&A Museum, Hochhauser Auditorium, Sackler Centre
Cromwell Road
London
SW7 2R
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In January 2012, We English exhibitions will open at Light House gallery in Wolverhampton and at the photography festival Pluie D’Images in Brest, France.
The Light House exhibition will run from Friday 27th January – Friday 13th April and I will be doing an artist talk on Thu 15 Mar, 7pm. More details here.
You can view a programme for the Pluie D’Images festival here, which runs from 14th January – 24th February.
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“Roberts’ manner is calm. He shows people small in the landscape, clustered into groups rather than isolated as individuals. He likes to shoot from relatively high, so we see patterns. It is partly a show about ritual in the landscape, the strange things we do to feel we belong. It is partly about how the very numbers of us who come to enjoy the land spoil the thing we admire. A strong theme is about movement, but Roberts shrewdly notices how much movement is local. Playing golf still has something pastoral about it, even in the shadow of the very power station which employed you.
These elegant pictures invite multiple readings, but they do it with confidence and zest.  With flashes of wit, humanity, and abundant respect for his photographic predecessors, Simon Roberts has added a good one to the canon of surveys of the English.”
Francis Hodgson (art adviser, photography critic at the FT and former head of photographs at Sotheby’s) has just written a review of We English. You can read the full review here.
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