Martin Parr and Identity

In 2019 I visited the Martin Parr exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. I am glad I went. I witnessed a social documentarist whose body of work left a mark.

His theme was primarily ‘Britishness’. It is represented at times very simply - a plate of food, a sign, people eating or drinking or queuing or dancing, enjoying the seaside or mixing in their social club. Each shot on its own a cliché, a record shot. Put together you get a strong sense of what it is to be British. The shots can be unflattering -  certainly there is little editing, but in this body of work, they are right at home. It is about identity. It is about people, what they are doing and the context/ background in which they are doing it. Together it shouts who they are – British. Leaving the exhibition, you can’t but help think you have seen what it is to be British.

Yet I was a little disturbed with this vision of Britishness. Looking back over the whole exhibition it is dominated by photos of whites and ‘Englishness’. English people, customs and traditions dominate. It is a view of Britishness but is it one that would be recognised in Blackburn or Hackney or even Mayfair? Is it the Britain of today? Is it the Britain of everywhere? There was a shot of a fish and chip shop staffed by 2 Muslim girls which clearly seems to say – ‘hey look, how anachronistic, Muslim girls staffing an English landmark’.

It made me think about my own project. Parr has captured a spirit of Britishness, albeit traditional rather than contemporary, by using different themes - seaside, dancing, working, socialising, eating. I will show my version of the Spirit of Cyprus through my own themes  - my Diamantis panels.