Contemporary Reflections

Contemporary Reflections

Founded in 2012, Document Scotland is a photography collective dedicated to providing an accurate and diverse view of the nation. Comprising four practitioners – Colin McPherson, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, Sophie Gerrard and Stephen McLaren – the group explores the country’s changing social, economic and ecological landscape. Set against the backdrop of current issues such as population expansion, Brexit, climate change and equality, they acknowledge the past and its complex resonance with an unpredictable present.

The Flow Country, Scotland, 2018. © Sophie Gerrard

A selection of these images is on view in A Contested Land at the Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol. Featured here are works by Gerrard, who engages with the undulating landscapes of Scotland’s peat bogs. The pieces explore the environmental resource’s gradual decline, looking to conservation methods and questioning the viewer’s relationship with the natural world.

Viewed as a whole, the selection explores expansive, insightful and deeply human themes. Sutton-Hibbert looks to the political theatre of Scotland’s parades and marches; McPherson to life on the Inner Hebridean quarrying island of Easdale and McLaren delves into a troubled history, revealing the hidden link between Edinburgh and the slave trade with Jamaica.

The exhibition runs from 16 January-16 March. Find out more here.

Lead image: The Flow Country, Scotland, 2018. © Sophie Gerrard