Patina

Noun: a gloss or sheen on a surface resulting from age or polishing

In this project, I have made images of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, representing a critical view of our current society in the West, specifically its politics, and set it in the context of the empire to remind us of where it all derived. I have visualised this through fragmentation and attention to the overlooked without losing a sense of opulence.

Making sense of the world that we live in, its people and histories is, to a varying degree, everyone’s concern. However, the stories we are told and the myths we create often overlook the painful realities of many people’s lives, and the cruel and traumatic ways in which we came to enjoy the comforts of 21st-century life, through empire, slavery and more recently through debt.

The Royal Pavilion, though only a museum, is like an indexical link to the past and empire through its objects and design, which have a strong influence of the East.

This project form the final submission for the MA photography course at the University of Brighton