Jun 22 2006

What Are You Looking At?

Asked to contribute to the August 2006 'Health of the Nation'-themed issue of i-D magazine, Nick Knight and Simon Foxton elected to create a photographic story about the 'brutalising city': how it is brutalised by us, how it brutalises us and as a result, how it encourages us to brutalise each other.

Spreads

View Nick and Simon's favourite 'brutalising city' photographic submissions, laid out in a magazine-style spread by art director Dean Langley.

Briefs

Watch Nick Knight and Simon Foxton deliver their respective photographic and stylistic briefs for the project.

Spoken Brief (Nick Knight)
Spoken Brief (Simon Foxton)

Simon Foxton
Jesus Said, 1987
£10,000

About

Asked to contribute to the August 2006 'Health of the Nation'-themed issue of i-D magazine, Nick Knight and Simon Foxton elected to create a photographic story about the 'brutalising city': how it is brutalised by us, how it brutalises us and as a result, how it encourages us to brutalise each other.

Taking the Gaia hypothesis that the universe functions as a single, living organism as a point of departure, the pair set about imagining cities as humans: fractures in its concrete 'skin' symbolising slashes to the body, the water flowing under London or its interconnecting roads as veins and arteries. The loose correlations are endless.

Realising that London is only one of many possible locations for such a shoot, Knight and Foxton opened the project to SHOWstudio viewers worldwide, throwing down their brief as a gauntlet. Viewers sent their 'brutalising city' story in advance of i-D's publication date, published in a special gallery on SHOWstudio to examine the difference between how photographers from across the planet each interpret the brief and their experience of city living.

Credits / Contributors

Simon Foxton
Stylist

Concept: Nick Knight and Simn Foxton

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Spreads

Briefs