Many of you have already been enjoying Ian Justice’s Suburban Archetypes released a couple of months ago. Representing the wealth of Modernist churches in Sheffield, the photo book provides a mixture of the familiar and not so familiar. Ian spoke to us about the history and process of the project.
This is a reprint of a book published initially a few years ago. Can you tell us the journey of the book?
The first Suburban Archetypes zine was printed in August 2019 and was a little self-published thing that I released as part of a collaborative exhibition at Sydney & Matilda gallery in Sheffield, where I was showing some of the photographs from the series. I’d started photographing churches around 2009 when I was living and studying in Leeds. I ended up with a small series of work but started working on other stuff and kind of left it at that. I moved back to Sheffield after University and didn’t really work on any personal projects for a while. In around 2016 I decided to revisit the ideas I’d originally had in Leeds and started focussing on churches in the Sheffield area, and that’s where Suburban Archetypes stemmed from.
Why do you think there has been a renewed interest in Modernist architecture?
It’s hard to pinpoint why, as I’m sure everyone has their own take on it. I think nostalgia plays a large part, because people like to look back and reminisce on the way things were. I also think the prolific rise of post-war modernist infrastructure had such an impact on people’s relationships with their towns and cities that it was bound to leave a lasting legacy. So in a lot of ways, I think the interest has always been there but the internet and social media especially have definitely contributed to its resurgence. Whatever the reasons for its resurgence, in my eyes it can only have a positive impact and will hopefully lead to helping protect and preserve a lot of these buildings.
Why do you think people are especially attracted to Modernist churches?
Regardless of people’s opinions on them whether it’s positive or negative, there’s no doubt that they’re striking buildings. A lot of the time they’ve been built in the midst of sprawling housing estates with endless identical looking houses, so they really stand out as these powerful structures on the landscape and are impossible to ignore. They’re not uniform in their design and each one has unique characteristics.
Obviously, the intention when building places of worship throughout the world has always been to make them stand out and give them this god fearing aura. To me, modernist churches are really effective in achieving this compared to more traditional churches. They’re relatively new buildings in comparison to traditional churches and are often built in suburban areas so not widely seen by people in their everyday routines, so I think when people do come across them they can appear almost otherworldly and quite powerful.
I’m by no means a religious person, so my viewpoint towards them is objective, in the way that I am looking at them more as structures in their communities as opposed to their explicit purpose. I’m interested in what the future will bring to them in an expanding, diversifying Britain and I’m curious about what place they might hold in their communities in the future.
Do you use digital or film? Which do you use and why?
I use film. I tried to go digital at one point but found it wasn’t for me. I like the slower process of using analogue cameras and film, it makes me think more about what I’m photographing and how I do it. It’s expensive and the film isn’t getting any cheaper, but it’s the way I find works best for me.
Where do your photographic influences come from?
The Bechers and all the Düsseldorf School of photographers have been a big influence since I started having a real interest in photography. John Davis, Mark Power, Gerry Johansson and Stephen Gill are also big influences. I guess I find influence from them all in different ways, but I like their approaches to exploring ‘place’ and the environments they find themselves in.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a series about Benidorm. My grandparents used to go out there every year in their retirement to escape the English winter and my parents took me and my sister to visit them in the school holidays. It’s a place I’ve visited countless times since I was little and I’ve always found it a fascinating place. Obviously it has a huge influx of British tourists, so the Brexit referendum got me thinking about its history and what effect the UK leaving the EU might have on its future. So I went there a few times in the last few years to try and document it during this transitional period for the UK and the EU. It’s pretty much finished but I wanted to present it in some kind of publication, so I’m currently trying to figure that out.
Suburban Archetypes by Ian Justice is available from https://www.the-modernist.org/shop/subarch
https://www.ian-justice.co.uk/
@ian__justice