Press

HUMAN ENDEAVOUR

This exhibition brings together current work by five contemporary landscape photographers who concern themselves with the relationship between modern society and the space it occupies.

Alex Currie’s documentation is concerned with the continuing disappearance of a post-industrial and urban landscape, and the experiential relationship that is lost through the destruction of these spaces, reflecting upon the collective loss this has upon the human condition. Ben Westoby is concerned with the expansion and movement of the modern urban landscape, the impact it has on surrounding areas, and the altered sense of place that occurs through this movement. Similarly, Richard Chivers’ survey of the site of an ex-military airbase traces the gradual, shifting topography of the area and the tenacious relationship between the organic and synthetic landscapes, echoing a time of direct action and protest that has shifted to other prevalent political ideals in the 21st century. Simon Carruthers’ series of images along London’s extensive canal system focuses on areas of recent redevelopment that reflects traces of their decline as a mode of transport for the industrial capital. This creates a tension that offers new perspectives on infrastructure in a state of transition. Oliver Perrot’s images of glacial landscapes act as a metaphor for the impact of modern society on the natural environment. These masses of ice slowly melt away to reveal new, unfamiliar textures and shapes; analogous to the changing ways we experience our surroundings, and ourselves.

The individual works shown here aim to offer new understandings of our position within a continually changing landscape. As a collective, these images bring together new perspective of the dialogue that occurs through our evolving relationship within the landscape we inhabit, and how this resonates upon the collective human psyche in wider society.