Belfast
18 January to 7 March 2008




Belfast Exposed is presenting Motherland by Simon Roberts. The Belfast exhibition will consist of a selection of 26 prints, and copies of a publication of the work will also be available.

The series was produced over the course of a year spent travelling across Russia. Roberts started in the Russian Far East, travelled through the Siberian provinces, up the Kola Peninsula and across Kaliningrad, before heading down to the Northern Caucasus, the Altai Mountains and along the Volga River. In the course of his travels he covered 75,000 kilometres and crossed 11 time zones.

Since it's publication, by Chris Boot, in March 2007, Motherland has received some of the following responses:

Motherland is a beautifully resolved body of work and the pervading air of melancholy, so suited the subject. The editing together of landscape and figure studies work powerfully together and Simon's eye for the special detail that lifts a picture above a record to become a kind of poetry is evident in every image.
Martin Barnes, Curator of Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum

A remarkable photo-essay by Simon Roberts which narrates a year-long journey across post-Soviet Russia.
Robert McCrum, The Observer

Motherland is a remarkably sensitive, optimistic and empathetic comment on Russian identity during a time of enormous change. Roberts'work is significant because it returns to traditional documentary values, eschewing representations of Russia as a decaying country defined by alcoholism, drug abuse and violence.
Greg Hobson, Curator of Photographs, National Media Museum

Artist's biography
Simon Roberts (b.1974) grew up in Surrey and lives in Brighton, UK. His photography career began in 1997 after gaining a BA Hons degree in Human Geography from The University of Sheffield and a Distinction in Photojournalism from the National Union for the Training of Journalists, Sheffield. Simon has carried out major works in Russia, Ukraine, America, Zimbabwe, Israel and Palestine which have published in national and international magazines including Granta, TIME, Sunday Times Magazine, Guardian Weekend Magazine, Observer, Details, Independent on Sunday Review, TANK, Der Spiegel and Le Monde 2.

The exhibition of Motherland in Belfast is supported by the Arts Council Northern Ireland.

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Belfast Exposed Photography
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Ireland
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