Art, Society, Nature Takeover—Simon Martin

The photography residency takeovers started yesterday, May 10, and was opened by Simon Martin.

Simon is a Kent based landscape and portrait photographer focusing primarily on British culture such as the pastimes of Royal Marine Cadets and Competitive Mini Golf players in his first self published photo book ‘Minigolf’.

Simon's second major body of work ‘Cadets’ looks at the social interactions of 13-18 year olds as they attend after school activities influenced by the ethos of the Royal Marines, the work has been exhibited internationally and most recently at the ICP in New York, Martin hopes to release the series as his second book in coming years. His latest series ‘Fortress’ focuses on our relationship with the land that surrounds us, more specifically Milton Marshland which runs parallel to the Thames in the North of Kent. Simon will continue to work in Kent whilst pursuing commissions within the UK.

Simon on his residency project so far:

“Given the short term of the residency and the distance I’d need to travel to the school I didn’t want to insult Margate with the idea of capturing a slither of its identity within 8 day visits. I’ve been working on a separate body of work for a few years now, discussing the idea of familiarity and identity of places and wanted to continue my progression with that work whilst at the school. Using photography’s base use as a form of description through the eyes of the artist I’ve continued to experiment with the creation of identity, influenced by the forms of familiarity and comfort created with gentrification and the eradication of places individuality for the ‘customers’ comfort. The work is still in progress and the final images shown are not to be taken as the final product but a stage in its development."

To see more of Simon's work head over to his Instagram or his website

Simon on the darkroom facilities:

“It’s been a fantastic experience using the facilities at The Margate school, I haven’t used a darkroom regularly since university and forgot how big a part it is of the photographic process, making a set of final prints benefits the editing process greatly and hand printing gives you a renewed love for each image."

If you're interested in hiring the darkroom or one of our other facilities follow the link here.