TRAFALGAR - Photoseries by Alexander Williamson

About

Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, built around the area formerly known as Charing Cross.

A carefully ordered space frequently disordered by restive forces, Trafalgar Square can be conceived of as what Pierre Nora termed 'lieux de mémoire'.  With its symmetrical construction and imperial origins, it is inextricably connected to Empire and postcolonial British, and indeed global, identity.  Its contemporary incarnation as a site of pilgrimage and orientation within the capital arguably make Trafalgar Square a microcosm of global consumer capitalist behaviour. Property of the Crown protected its heritage status; the square is often used for quasi-anarchic political demonstrations and minority community gatherings.

The photoseries Trafalgar is an attempt to explore the tension between those competing forces: history's grand narratives, and the role of the individual within them. It also effects a detailed investigation into the behaviour of crowds, and the exchange between the openness of this public space and the private space of the individual's inner life, their unreadable thoughts as they cross the square.  Shot every day over the course of 12 months, Trafalgar invites the viewer to look at an instantly recognisable place in an entirely new way.