Around Liverpool (29)
You can purchase prints and art by Phil Maxwell here: https://theartofresistance.bigcartel.com/
London In A Rice Field
During the 19th century London grew rapidly. It was the largest city in the world from about 1825, the world’s largest port, and the heart of international finance and trade. Nevertheless Whitechapel was still quite rural at the start of the 19th century. Early engravings and paintings of the Whitechapel hospital show it surrounded by fields. Viewing those images and taking into account how London has depended on immigration I decided to combine an image from Bangladesh with a view of the city taken from a tower block in Whitechapel. I started combining images from different countries in 2009. I do this to emphasise how humanity is connected worldwide. The links between Bangladesh and East London are manifold.
You can purchase prints and art by Phil Maxwell here: https://theartofresistance.bigcartel.com/
Around Liverpool (28)
You can purchase prints and art by Phil Maxwell here: https://theartofresistance.bigcartel.com/
Ecocide
This piece was made during the COP26 negotiations last year. It combines three photographs of a man wearing a mask walking toward the viewer with a coal powered power station in the distance. The garish colours represent a bleak and desolate landscape.
The UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) brought together 120 world leaders and over 40,000 registered participants, including 22,274 party delegates, 14.124 observers and 3.886 media representatives. Many of the registered participants represented the global interests of oil and fossil fuel companies and their shareholders.
“The approved texts are a compromise,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “They reflect the interests, the conditions, the contradictions and the state of political will in the world today. They take important steps, but unfortunately the collective political will was not enough to overcome some deep contradictions.”
The title was inspired by the excellent book ‘Ecocide’ by David Whyte. In it he argues that we have to “kill the corporation before it kills us”. He maps out a plan to end the corporation’s death-watch over us.
You can buy ‘Ecoside’ and other work by Phil Maxwell here: https://theartofresistance.bigcartel.com/product/ecocide
Around The East End (21)
You can buy prints and original art by Phil Maxwell here: https://theartofresistance.bigcartel.com/
Mobile Discobolus & Digital Wellbeing
I remember first seeing a photograph of the statue of the discus thrower in a book in 1971 and unsurprisingly the image has remained with me ever since.
The The Discobolus of Myron (“discus thrower“, Greek: Diskobólos) is a Greek sculpture completed at the start of the Classical period at around 460–450 BC. The sculpture depicts a youthful male athlete throwing a discus. The original Greek bronze is lost but the work is known through numerous Roman copies.
The athlete depicted in the statue would not be familiar with the concept of ‘digital wellbeing’. I’ve transposed the athlete into the 21st century and replaced the discuss with a mobile phone and given him headphones. The statue is no longer a celebration of athleticism. It asks who are we today and how different are we from the ancient Greeks? What would the ancient Greeks think of 21st century, consumerism and digital communication? Would they consider our pervasive digital connection to the world a false reality? Would they see a mobile phone and it’s demand for attention as a threat to genuine communication between people? Would they throw the phone away?
Buy a signed print here: https://theartofresistance.bigcartel.com/product/mobile-discobolus
International Street Photography (2)
Here is the latest film I’ve made with Hazuan Hashim:
