Photographically speaking, the shift from outside to inside, from street photography to a fascination with the interior, coincided with the rise of a virtuous way of life that centered on the home. Seen together, the minutiae of each ‘home’ becomes part of a wider conversation about the shifting sands of national identity.įrom the series “Housing Estates, Set 4”, 1985 © Stephen McCoy We journey from the dredges of a utopian post-war society through to the bleak extremes of the Thatcher era, where class and race are examined under the microscope, ending with the relentless question mark of Brexit, that since 2016 has cast an ambiguous cloud over the future. In capturing this personal, domestic space from so many perspectives, the exhibition weaves the individual back into the collective, pointing to the collision of dreams, aspirations and realities that defined each era in recent British history. And all the better that this survey-which is sensitive, wry, heartbreaking and confronting all at once-is undertaken with a little distance from across the Channel, headed by the watchful eye of French curator Isa Bonnet. It was, after all, the English that coined the words ‘comfort’ and ‘comfortable’, which the exhibition text tells us were imported into the French language because they expressed so succinctly the link between wellbeing and our private interiors. On a more serious note, it hints at the role it plays in determining their identity and relationship to wider society. Would an exhibition hinged so tightly on the domestic space have worked for other cultures? With its quaint and twee tone, the title of the exhibition instantly conjures up the pride and attachment that British citizens have to their homes.
Untitled, from the series “Something like a Nest”, 2014 © Andy Sewell
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