Exhibition

Joe Burrows: Zero Emission Zone / Blue Skies Over London

28 Jan 2020 – 12 Mar 2020

Regular hours

Tuesday
07:30 – 16:30
Wednesday
07:30 – 16:30
Thursday
07:30 – 16:30
Friday
07:30 – 16:30
Saturday
09:30 – 16:30
Monday
07:30 – 16:30

Save Event: Joe Burrows: Zero Emission Zone / Blue Skies Over London8

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Carmel by The Green

London
England, United Kingdom

Address

Travel Information

  • Bethnal Green
Directions via Google Maps Directions via Citymapper
Event map

Joe Burrows presents two bodies of documentary photography work side by side at Carmel by the Green.

About

Examining the apparent impermanence of once unwavering structures of the developed world, Zero Emission Zone captures London at a critical turning point of the energy transition. Suspended in the night, lost among unending urban sprawl, petrol stations have stood gleaming for the better part of a century. Vibrant branding is washed white by a battery of canopy mounted flood-lights; glowing price-numbers steal your curiosity, beady in the early morning mist; a comfortable familiarity follows you with each empty tank and lingers like the gasoline fumes that tickle your eyes. The petrol station forecourt has held firm a position as a symbol of progress in the developed world since their conception. The car represents freedom, at least until your fuel-gauge falters.

Zero Emission Zone lays out this lesser known impact of the energy transition, and begs the question; what next? It is no secret that land prices for prime London locations are a barrier of entry to the vast majority. Even so, it was recently proposed that over a million new homes could be built on redeveloped brownfield land such as abandoned petrol stations. While Sadiq Khan pushes the expansion of the EV market to capacity, these monuments of a bygone era may not be as everlasting as once thought.

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In defiance of traditional reportage photography, Blue Skies Over London (2019) uses the contemporary cityscape as a personal recount of the London Bridge stabbing of November 2019. From the perspective of a documentary photographer, Blue Skies Over London represents how we perceive the tentative everyday, and how fragile this shared experience can really be.

Presented as a series of inanimate skylines, Blue Skies Over London removes you from the scene of a tragedy to contemplate what it means to share a harrowing experience in a familiar space. The lustful gaze up into the blue abyss is one familiar to the vast majority, look again and it has changed. Not for clouds or contrails, but in one invisible instant.

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