Photographer Simon Roberts has spent the last three years photographing Britain’s last remaining Pleasure Piers, creating an architectural and ethnographical study of our coast and of British society.
Culminating in a comprehensive and fascinating photographic record of these monuments of Victorian engineering and eccentricity, Pierdom is a broad architectural and ethnographical study of our coast and of British society.
The pleasure pier follows the story of Britain’s relationship to the seaside, from the early links with the Romantics, to the engineering feats and technical advancement of the Industrial Revolution. Roberts documents the remaining piers using his signature landscape style, echoing the approach and tone of his acclaimed series, We English.
A national exhibition of this body of work is taking place at eleven venues simultaneously across Britain’s coastline in summer 2014, including Newport’s Quay Arts Centre to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the construction of Ryde Pier (the first of the British piers).
The exhibition will be on display from 8th July – 28th July at Quay Arts in Sea Street, Newport.
The show aims to generate a national conversation around the historical significance of these structures as cultural landmarks, enforcing the idea of Britain’s piers as cultural landmarks, tracing history and national identity from the Victorian period until now.
