Robin Friend

British photographer Robin Friend records remnants of the United Kingdom’s industrial past with images of decaying mines, beached cargo ships, empty slaughterhouse, and handmade scarecrows (called furlongs). Though some of these images depict decomposing machinery, many more show the overgrowth that has filled these spaces since they were long ago abandoned. This is evinced by a 2013 photo from Friend’s Formations series wherein the picture plane is dominated by large, bright blue-green sheets of metallic run-off. Shot in an abandoned Welsh mine, the photo documents the unnatural geological phenomena that human civilizations leave in their wake.

In a statement on his website, Friend explains, “My work explores the fragile relationship between human beings and nature.  I find this power struggle fascinating. It is all around us. A relationship in flux that is always ebbing and flowing and therefore impossible to predict—apart from the final outcome that is. For that there can only be one winner.”

Friend’s photographs have been exhibited around the world, including in shows at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Pingyao Photography Festival in Pingyao, China, and the Royal College of Art in London. In 2008, Friend was a resident at the Chicago Institute of Arts Research Residency, and in 2009, he was the winner of the Photographers Gallery Award. Friend is also the recipient of several important commissions, including photographs for the book Qatar: Realm of the Possible (Transglobe Publishing Ltd., 2013), which documents the juxtaposition of global economic development with traditional culture in the burgeoning Gulf region.