Artist Talk from GRAIN: Simon Roberts

Photography hub and network GRAIN is hosting a new series of talks by artists and photographers, and the next instalment brings one of Britain’s most considered documentary photographers to Birmingham. Simon Roberts will speak on 12 April 2016, 6pm – 7.30pm, at the Lecture Theatre, Birmingham City University, Parkside Campus, 5 Cardigan Street, Birmingham B4 7BD.

Tickets are £4 full price or £3 student/concession, and booking for this event is essential. For more information contact, or book through Eventbrite.

Key Takeaways

• Simon Roberts (b.1974) is a British photographer whose large-format tableaux examine landscape, identity and belonging.
• His background is unusual: a BA (Hons) in Human Geography from the University of Sheffield, which continues to inform his photographic practice.
• He works with great technical precision, often from elevated vantage points, echoing the visual language of history painting.
• His three monographs — Motherland (2007), We English (2009) and Pierdom (2013) — are central to any understanding of contemporary British documentary photography.
• He was the official Election Artist for the 2010 General Election and the only art photographer granted IOC access to the London 2012 Olympics.
• The GRAIN talk is a rare chance to hear an artist discuss method, research and the ethics of representing people in the West Midlands and beyond.

Why This Talk Matters for the Region

GRAIN has built a reputation as one of the Midlands’ most active photography hubs, running talks, crits and networking events that connect emerging practitioners with established names. For artists, curators, gallerists, students and collectors across Birmingham and the West Midlands, this series is part of a wider ecology that includes the New Art West Midlands graduate exhibition, the region’s commercial galleries and the public collections that acquire new work. For those wanting to explore the region’s commercial and public spaces, this selection of birmingham art galleries is a useful next step.

Roberts’ practice sits at an interesting intersection for that audience. He is a documentary photographer whose work is collected by major institutions, published as books, and shown in galleries — which means his talk is relevant whether you are a student deciding how to develop a long-term project, a curator thinking about how to hang large-format work, or a collector trying to understand what makes a photographic print worth acquiring.

Who Is Simon Roberts?

Simon Roberts was born in 1974 and is a British photographer whose work deals with our relationship to landscape and notions of identity and belonging. He originally studied a BA (Hons) Degree in Human Geography at the University of Sheffield — a subject which has helped inform his subsequent photographic practice.

That geographical training is not incidental. Where many photographers arrive at landscape through aesthetics, Roberts arrives through questions: who lives here, who owns this land, how do people use it, and what does that reveal about the country at a given moment? Often employing expansive tableaux photographs, his approach is one of creating wide-ranging surveys of our time, which examine contemporary economic, cultural and political landscapes.

His large format photographs are taken with great technical precision, often from elevated positions. The distanced vantage point allows the relationship of people to the landscape to be clearly observed, and echoes the visual language of history painting. One commentator has described his photographs as “subtle in their discovery and representation of forms of cultural character, which exhibit a disciplined compositional restraint, a richness of palette, and wealth of narrative incident.”

Reading the Work: Method and Approach

If you are coming to the talk as a practising photographer, it helps to arrive with a sense of how Roberts actually works. A few consistent characteristics run through the projects:

• Large format, deliberate pace. Working with a large-format camera forces a slower, more considered way of image-making. You cannot improvise a Roberts picture the way you might a street photograph; the equipment itself imposes research, planning and patience.
• Elevated vantage points. Shooting from height — a hill, a bridge, a raised platform — flattens the scene into something closer to a stage. Figures become small, and their relationship to the ground they occupy becomes the subject.
• The tableau tradition. The result is closer to history painting than to reportage. This is a deliberate lineage, and it shapes how the pictures are read: as composed statements rather than snatched moments.
• Survey as form. Rather than single images, Roberts builds bodies of work — dozens of pictures that accumulate into an argument about a place or a period.
• Geography as research. The Human Geography background shows up in the way projects are scoped: defined geographies, defined questions, defined periods of fieldwork.

For students in the audience, this is a useful model to weigh against faster, more intuitive ways of working. Neither is better; they simply produce different kinds of knowledge.

The Major Projects

Roberts has published three critically acclaimed monographs, and each is worth knowing before the talk:

• Motherland (Chris Boot, 2007) — a study of contemporary Russia, made over an extended period, examining everyday life and national identity.
• We English (Chris Boot, 2009) — a survey of English leisure and landscape that was voted one of the best photography books of the past decade. It is probably the work most people associate with him.
• Pierdom (Dewi Lewis, 2013) — a comprehensive photographic record of Britain’s seaside piers, combining architectural documentation with a meditation on decline, nostalgia and national identity.

Taken together, the three books show a photographer building a sustained, long-form argument about Britain and its self-image — the kind of project that takes years rather than months.

Recognition, Awards and Commissions

His work has been exhibited widely, with solo shows at the National Media Museum, Bradford, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, and the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow. Recent group exhibitions include Observers: British Photography and the British Scene (From the 1920s to Now) at Galeria de Arte SESI, Brazil, and Landmark: The Fields of Photography at Somerset House, London.

His photographs reside in major public and private collections, including the George Eastman House, the Deutsche Börse Art Collection and the Wilson Centre for Photography.

In recognition of his work, Roberts has received several awards including the Vic Odden Award, offered for a notable achievement in the art of photography by a British photographer, along with bursaries from the National Media Museum and the John Kobal Foundation, and grants from Arts Council England.

Two commissions stand out for anyone interested in how photography intersects with public life:

• Official Election Artist, 2010. He was commissioned by the House of Commons Works of Art Committee to produce a record of the 2010 General Election on behalf of the UK Parliament.
• London 2012 Olympics. In 2012 he was the only art photographer granted access by the International Olympic Committee to the London Olympics.

Most recently he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.

What to Expect from the Talk — and How to Get the Most From It

Artist talks vary enormously in usefulness. The best ones give you something you cannot get from a monograph: the reasoning behind decisions, the failures, the abandoned ideas, and the practical logistics of funding and access. Here is how to make the most of this one.

Before you go:

• Look at We English and Pierdom if you can. Even a quick online browse will give you visual anchors for the discussion.
• Note two or three specific questions. Vague questions (“how do you find your subjects?”) tend to produce vague answers; specific ones (“how did you decide on the vantage points in Pierdom?”) tend to produce useful ones.
• If you are a student or early-career photographer, bring a way to take notes — the practical detail is often the most valuable part.

During the talk, listen for:

• How projects are scoped and funded, and how long they actually take.
• The relationship between research and image-making — what happens before the camera comes out.
• How access is negotiated, particularly for commissions like the Election and the Olympics.
• How the work is edited down from thousands of frames to a book or exhibition.

Afterwards:

• The Q&A and the informal conversation afterwards are often where the real information surfaces.
• GRAIN’s network is part of the value here; the room will contain curators, students, photographers and collectors.

Practical Details and Booking

Detail	Information
Speaker	Simon Roberts
Date	12 April 2016
Time	6pm – 7.30pm
Venue	Lecture Theatre, Birmingham City University, Parkside Campus, 5 Cardigan Street, Birmingham B4 7BD
Tickets	£4 full price / £3 student or concession
Booking	Essential — via Eventbrite
Contact

The venue is central and easily reached from across Birmingham, which makes it accessible whether you are coming from the city’s art schools, the Jewellery Quarter galleries or further afield in the West Midlands.

Why Large-Format Documentary Still Matters

It is worth pausing on why an artist working in this tradition is relevant to a region with as active a contemporary art scene as the West Midlands.

Large-format documentary photography is slow, expensive and increasingly rare. It requires a different kind of commitment from both maker and viewer. In an era of instant image saturation, the tableau photograph asks you to stand in front of a print and look — to read detail, to notice the small narrative incidents that a commentator identified in Roberts’ work, and to consider the relationship between the people in the frame and the land they occupy.

For collectors, this matters practically. Photographic prints made from large-format negatives, produced in limited editions and often held in major public collections, occupy a particular place in the market: they are typically more affordable than painting or sculpture at comparable levels of institutional recognition, but they carry the same kind of curatorial validation. Understanding an artist’s method — how the picture was made, how many exist, how it was printed — is central to buying well.

For curators and gallerists, Roberts’ practice offers a model of how to present documentary work in a gallery context: sequenced, scaled, and given enough space to be read rather than skimmed.

Further Reading and Context

• The National Science and Media Museum in Bradford (formerly the National Media Museum) has exhibited Roberts’ work and holds photography collections of national significance.
• The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, is one of the world’s oldest and most important photography and film collections, and holds his work.
• The Royal Photographic Society, which made Roberts an Honorary Fellow, is one of the oldest photographic societies in the world.
• Chris Boot and Dewi Lewis are the publishers of his monographs; both are recognised for serious photographic publishing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to book in advance for the Simon Roberts talk?

Yes — booking for this event is essential. Tickets are £4 full price or £3 student/concession, and can be booked through Eventbrite. Contact for more information.

Where exactly is the talk taking place?

It is at the Lecture Theatre, Birmingham City University, Parkside Campus, 5 Cardigan Street, Birmingham B4 7BD. The talk runs from 6pm to 7.30pm on 12 April 2016.

What kind of photographer is Simon Roberts?

He is a British documentary photographer working primarily in large format, often from elevated vantage points. His work examines landscape, identity and belonging, and is characterised by expansive tableaux that echo the visual language of history painting.

Which of his books should I look at first?

We English (Chris Boot, 2009) is the most accessible starting point and was voted one of the best photography books of the past decade. Pierdom (Dewi Lewis, 2013) is a good follow-up, and Motherland (Chris Boot, 2007) shows the earlier Russian work.

Is the talk useful for students and early-career artists?

Yes. Roberts’ route — a Human Geography degree followed by a sustained photographic practice — is a useful case study for anyone building a long-term body of work. The practical detail about research, funding and access is often the most valuable part for students.

Who is GRAIN and what else do they do?

GRAIN is a photography hub and network that hosts talks, events and networking opportunities for photographers and artists. This talk is part of a new series by artists and photographers, and their mailing list is a good way to keep up with what is coming next.