Simon Roberts
‘We English’
Third Floor Gallery, Cardiff
14.07.2012 - 02.09.2012
Over the course of a year Simon Roberts travelled England in a motor home, training his large format 4×5 plate camera on people and places across the country. His richly detailed large-scale photographs provide a vivid and elegiac account of modern England. Showing people playing golf in the shadow of a power station, enjoying a picnic at the side of the road or congregating en masse on a sandy beach, the photographs in We English explore issues of identity, belonging and the relationship between a people and their land.
We English is a very personal work, drawing on Roberts’s childhood memories, his engagement with the tradition of British photographic work (from Bill Brandt to Paul Graham) and his journey across the country. It is also a shared vision, informed by the public participation that Roberts encouraged during his journey via his website.