Simon Roberts

Landscape Studies of a Small Island

Landscape Studies of a Small Island surveys a number of recent bodies of work by British photographer Simon Roberts (b. 1974). The exhibition will begin with a single image from Roberts’ Motherland series, an expansive social documentary project photographed across Russia between 2004 and 2005. This image marks a catalyst for Roberts and leads to over 50 photographs taken in Britain since Roberts returned there with a renewed interest in photographing his homeland.

The exhibition will weave through various series including Pierdom, We English, The Election Project and XXX Olympiad. Brought together here for the first time, the works demonstrate a sustained photographic investigation by Roberts into the terrain and shorelines of his native small island. The works picture the social practices and customs, cultural landmarks, economic and political theatre that define the space as uniquely British.

These large format photographs are taken with great technical precision, often from elevated positions. The distanced vantage point allows the relationship of individual bodies and groups to the landscape to be clearly observed, and echoes the visual language of history painting. The photographs point to contemporary issues specific to Britain, but equally engage with universal ideas of the human relationship to landscape, of identity and belonging.

The exhibition is realised in collaboration with The Photographers’ Gallery, London.