My aim will be to try and unlock the potential for the participants' projects: to help push them towards a resolution of how they will use photography to define their relationship to the world. This can be through a documentary project or indeed any instance where photographers feel there is a block preventing them from reaching their full potential.
About your reviewer
Martin Parr’s unmistakable eye for the quirks of ordinary life has made him a distinctive voice in visual culture for more than 30 years. Known for his use of garish colours and esoteric composition, he has studied cultural peculiarities around the world from Japan to America, Europe, and his home country of Britain. The themes of leisure, consumption and communication have occupied him for much of his career, all of which are explored with a penetrating irony. As photographer, filmmaker and collector, Parr has defined a generation.
Parr was born in Epsom, Surrey, UK. When he was a boy, his budding interest in photography was encouraged by his grandfather George Parr, himself a keen amateur photographer. Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic, from 1970 to 1973. Upon graduating, he worked at Manchester Council for Community Relations for three months and then started working towards his first exhibition, Home Sweet Home, at the Impressions Gallery in York.
