A Ffotogallery Guide to Empire - Jon Tonks
Jon Tonks’ first solo exhibition is a fascinating journey across the south Atlantic exploring life on four remote islands - the British Overseas Territories of Ascension Island, Tristan da Cunha, the Falkland Islands and St Helena - relics of the once formidable British Empire, all intertwined through their shared history.
Tonks spent up to a month at a time in each territory, travelling 60,000 miles around the Atlantic via military outposts, low-lit airstrips and long voyages aboard the last working Royal Mail Ship. Some 400 rolls of film, 24 flights and 32 days at sea later, the resulting work create an insight into these distant places that resonate with a sense of Britishness which is remarkably recognisable yet inescapably strange. Tonks photographed the people, the landscapes and the traces of the past embedded within each territory, telling the story of these remote and remarkable islands with a curiosity about the lives of these distant lands that remain very firmly British.
This photographic exhibition of Empire was commissioned and co-produced by Mac Birmingham, the Library of Birmingham, Ffotogallery, Cardiff and Impressions Gallery, Bradford.
Artist (s): Jon Tonks
Author (s):
Format: Softcover
Jon Tonks’ first solo exhibition is a fascinating journey across the south Atlantic exploring life on four remote islands - the British Overseas Territories of Ascension Island, Tristan da Cunha, the Falkland Islands and St Helena - relics of the once formidable British Empire, all intertwined through their shared history.
Tonks spent up to a month at a time in each territory, travelling 60,000 miles around the Atlantic via military outposts, low-lit airstrips and long voyages aboard the last working Royal Mail Ship. Some 400 rolls of film, 24 flights and 32 days at sea later, the resulting work create an insight into these distant places that resonate with a sense of Britishness which is remarkably recognisable yet inescapably strange. Tonks photographed the people, the landscapes and the traces of the past embedded within each territory, telling the story of these remote and remarkable islands with a curiosity about the lives of these distant lands that remain very firmly British.
This photographic exhibition of Empire was commissioned and co-produced by Mac Birmingham, the Library of Birmingham, Ffotogallery, Cardiff and Impressions Gallery, Bradford.
Artist (s): Jon Tonks
Author (s):
Format: Softcover
