We English
UH Galleries are delighted to present We English by British photographer Simon Roberts.
This touring exhibition from the National Media Museum, Bradford is the result of an English road trip in search of national identity and people at leisure. During 2007–2008, Roberts travelled the length and breadth of England with his family in a motorhome, photographing people playing, relaxing and revelling in the country’s richly varied landscape.
Gathered together as We English, his works are an intriguing and lyrical, personal exploration of the nation. Roberts’s project reflects the strong heritage of British landscape and documentary photography.
Greg Hobson, Curator of Photographs at the National Media Museum said: “Simon Roberts is an important photographer whose practice extends the great traditions of British Landscape photography."
Locations featured in the exhibition include Skegness Beach, Aintree Racecourse, Malvern Hills, South Downs Way and Bolton Abbey, taking in events from golf to paragliding, picnics to parties, and camping to racing across mud flats. The large prints rejoice in their subjects, showing a fantastic level of detail across expanses of terrain and the collective activities taking place.
Simon said: “Looking at the activities we partake in outdoors struck me as a thought-provoking way of exploring England’s shifting cultural and national identity. They seem to say much more about who we are than, for instance, what we do in the workplace. And landscape is an intrinsic part of these experiences. I was interested in the way that we transform the English landscape, how we utilise, consume and enjoy it.”
Visitor information
Visit: Museum of St Albans
Opening hours:
Monday to Saturday, 10.00am-5.00pm
Sunday, 2.00pm-5.00pm
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