Martin Parr: “My real goal is to photograph the British summertime, and that isn’t going to happen this summer”

“I feel deprived,” Martin Parr says of his time in self-isolation at home in Bristol, England. When we speak over Zoom, it has been 25 days since UK citizens were ordered indoors by the government. But still, it’s a good time to be speaking with Parr. As a chronicler of British culture since the early 1970s, he has seen the UK go through sunny highs and tumultuous lows. From his documentation of the religious communities of Hebden Bridge before and after the 1979 election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister and the Brexit vote in 2016, to happy days spent on Liverpool’s beaches and the glamourous Frieze art fair―Parr has seen it all. 

As a photographer who has documented British life for five decades, I’m interested in what he makes of the stasis so many of us have found ourselves in. It turns out, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Parr is well versed at working with what’s in front of him—which for a photographer who has spent a career finding the curious in the mundane, isn’t surprising.

Parr is busy and has begun organising his extensive photo archive located at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol. He established the foundation in 2017 to represent noteworthy British photography by both established and emerging photographers. “I’m doing all those jobs that always get pushed back because you’re too busy,” he says of the project, highlights of which he’s sharing on his Instagram account Martin Parr Studio.

A lot of people in the arts have found that when things get bad, the desire to move forward through the act of creating does not disappear. Despite platitudes on social media telling us to slow down, many artists want to process the situation via their work. Parr is one of them, and during the pandemic, he’s also launched a photo competition which involves a new challenge each week that participants can do from their home. Each week, he picks a winner who receives a signed Martin Parr book. 

Here is a photographer not concerned about this being an introspective time. Being at home is a skill, he says, and creativity in a time like this is really a case of originality. “People have always come up with something that’s interesting” he says, “after this there will be a new normal, whatever that is.

Grace Banks: Let’s begin with where you are, at home in Bristol. How are you feeling? 

Martin Parr: I hate being cooped up indoors. 

GB: I can imagine. You’re a documentary photographer and your work is very much about movement, that ability to be able to see something and capture it is so fundamental to what you do. How does it feel to be constricted like this? 

MP: I feel deprived, you know. Of course, I’m part of the privileged people here. We have a garden, we have all the food we need. I’m able to pay the staff at the [Martin Parr] Foundation over the next few months. I’m in a very privileged position. But nonetheless, my whole raison d’être, is to photograph people and of course, the summer is the key time when everyone’s out. 

I had a lot lined up: Wimbledon, Glastonbury, St Paul’s Carnival in Bristol, a few other summer events, which I no longer can go to. I feel somewhat lost really, because I can get a few pictures of the birds on the bird table, but my real goal if you like, is to photograph the British summertime and that isn’t going to happen this summer.

GB: When did you make the decision to close the Martin Parr Foundation? 

MP: The lockdown was when we had to close the foundation. We’ve had to push a few things back to October, assuming by then we’re able to open the foundation then. In that week, as you will know, everything just got canceled for everybody.

GB: You’re known for finding the unusual in the mundane. How are you managing to find that at the moment? Are you struggling for subject matter?

MP: I’ve taken some pictures in the house and a few of the gardens with the birds, but so far, I’ve haven’t had much luck. I’ve taken a few pictures of the supermarket. But once you’ve done that, you’re limited. 

What I’m doing at the moment is looking at my archive. I’m doing all those jobs that always get pushed back because you’re too busy. 

GB: In this new environment, are you questioning what the role of photography is? 

MP: We’ve been keeping pretty active. Through the Martin Parr Foundation, we’re running a competition, a series of photographic challenges such as self isolation and portraits that people can carry out at home, with a new challenge released each week. I’m selecting a winner for each category and winners will get a signed book. 

Last week, I was interviewed by David Alan Harvey on Instagram Live with Magnum Photos. So you know, we’re keeping ourselves busy.

GB: What kind of photography are you interested in seeing now? 

MP: Ideally, one would go out and photograph the queues and the supermarkets. You can photograph a city deserted, but that too, is fairly limited. Because once you’ve done Bristol, Berlin, London, wherever you are, with no one in it, there’s not much further to go. But people have always come up with something. Just the other day we ran some pictures by JJ Wallace, who is a photographer based in Brighton, and he’s done these lockdown portraits of people against the windows and the doors of where they’re locked in. So, photographers always come up with something that’s interesting. 

GB: This past weekend has been the hottest in England this year. On weekends there have been a lot of people out in parks and the usual Twitter outrage of shaming people doing this. As someone who has photographed the British extensively, were you disappointed in this ignoring of regulations?

MP: We do have to take the government restrictions seriously in order to try and bring cases of the virus down. I mean, they’re not being as strict as they have been in Spain or Italy, but still. 

GB: You run a regular series on your instagram account Martin Parr Studio where you feature six images from your archive that fit to a theme. I noticed that you were showing tins and food last week, which obviously makes sense. Your archive is huge, how do you approach choosing which images to share within that? It’s an interesting way to reframe your work and show that even images taken thirty years ago can strike a chord with today’s society as well. 

MP: The archive is huge and Instagram is a pretty good way of showing parts of it that fit to the current climate. Last week, we put up a series of pictures of people buying beer, for example, the images look very reminiscent of some of these crazy scenes we’ve seen recently in supermarkets. So yes, if something in the archive feels current I like to share the images. 

GB: I wanted to ask if you have any kind of political feelings about this current situation. The conservative government is having to provide for people in a way that feels socialist in some aspects. 

MP: I think it’s good for the government to have come in and protected salaries and subsidised some of the self-employed, although not all self employed. I’m all in favor of this, you know, it must be done. And yes, it is interesting that the government is having to become more socialist in the process. 

GB: Do you think the fall out of this crisis is something that could work in the Labour Party’s favour? 

MP: I’m very happy Keir Starmer was chosen as leader of the party. He seems super smart, a sensible kind of guy. A little bit boring perhaps, but that is what you need at this time. And he seems very together. 

GB: Do you think your politics are evident through your photographs?

MP: I work in journalistic photography, so yes, I’m clearly left in my pictures. There are politics that are beneath the surface, if you like. But they’re not the sort worn on my sleeve.

GB: In 1975, you moved to Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire and you began shooting religious communities there. You moved there when there was a Labour government, but by the late 1970s, Margaret Thatcher had been voted in. I know you left Hebden Bridgeat the end of the 1970s, did you sense a difference in the communities you were shooting between the two governments?

MP: By the 1980s, it was much more abrasive. So the gentle sensitivity of life was somewhat eroded. By the mid-1980s, I was in Liverpool, and you really felt the discomfort of some people. 

GB: Do you sense the same discomfort now? For many lower income communities life will be hard to rebuild.

MP: Yes, I’m aware that at the moment that there are going to be many victims of this current crisis. It’s not an easy time for many, many people.

GB: You’ve travelled all over the world and shot in Iran, Japan, Russia and more. Will you be less likely to fly after this?

MP: Am I going to be less inclined to jump on planes? Yes. After this, there will be a new normal, whatever that is. 

GB: You set up the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol in 2017, dedicated to preserving the legacy of British photographers. What kind of photographers are you working with?

MP: Over the years, I’ve accumulated quite a few prints from my peer group, and I decided I should try and do something constructive with them and decided to create a foundation. We opened on 17 October 2017 and since then we’ve been running a program of exhibitions, maybe five a year. We continue to acquire photographers and we have a program of talks, it’s been really going pretty well. The idea is to preserve, showcase and celebrate the achievements of other photographers.

GB: What are the characteristics of a British photographer?

MP: We’re particularly good at documentary photography. I’d say it’s sort of a tradition. And many of these great photographers who were in that tradition haven’t had the success they could have in the UK because there is still some reluctance to accept their work. Even though people like to embrace photography, there are people who are working from the art world who can be different from, say, a documentary photographer, and exist in a contemporary art space. 

GB: I wanted to finish by talking about the frame of your photos. What do you have in mind when you’re taking a photograph? 

MP: To get the picture right, it doesn’t happen all the time. It’s a rare thing, they’re elusive. But you keep trying, you keep shooting. 

All photos © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos.