‘My first conscious memory was the sound of hunting dogs baying on the fringes of Dartmoor,’ says photographer Robert Darch, who recently launched his new book at the Martin Parr Foundation. ‘Although our 1960s semi backed onto fields, the rurality of Devon and the baying hounds must have appeared otherworldly to me as a three-year-old.’
That mystical feeling has stayed with Darch, and it permeates the pages of The Moor, a sci-fi visual narrative that shows the landscape as a dystopia in the near future. Dark, tense and perilous, Dartmoor is turned into a dramatic stage setting, primal and symbolic. As an adult, Darch found himself living in the area, moving closer and closer to the moor, drawn there as if by some uncanny force.
It’s the ambivalence of the bleak and barren landscape that Darch clearly finds so fascinating and that has continued to capture his imagination. ‘The moors can appear serene and beautiful on a summer’s day, but during the winter, covered in snow, fog, battered by high winds and stinging rain you can lose yourself in the landscape,’ he explains.
Darch continues: ‘Initially I was considering making a documentary project about the people that inhabit and work on the moor. However, I soon realised that I was far more interested in making a work about how Dartmoor makes me feel, lost, alone, isolated, excited and scared.’
The people who become the characters in Darch’s narrative all share a relationship with Dartmoor; although constructed. ‘On the days I was out with people I also allowed for situations to naturally present themselves,’ the photographer notes, including a series of images of a male figure falling asleep next to an uprooted tree. ‘My subject hadn’t slept the previous night, he was partying and during the whole shoot he was literally falling asleep standing up. This was a genuine response to a set of real world circumstances which helped formulate the idea of people surviving in a dystopian future.’
Darch is already working on his next project in connection Dartmoor, but this time it’s something more traditional: a documentary project on teens training for the Ten Tors, an annual event organised by the British Army.
The Moor, £16, published by Another Place Press
-
This nostalgic exhibition dives into a century of British surfingCornwall's National Maritime Museum charts the history of waveriding on England's south coast
-
Waiheke Island is a must-visit for oenophiles and aesthetes alikeDiscover what to do during this New Zealand destination's annual Walking Festival and beyond
-
Bold colours and tactile textures: inside Bottega Veneta's second fine jewellery dropThe collection is composed of two parts: Enlaced and Alchemy
-
From counter-culture to Northern Soul, these photos chart an intimate history of working-class Britain‘After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024’ is at Edinburgh gallery Stills
-
Daniel Arsham’s new monograph collates the works of the auto-obsessed American artist‘Arsham Motorsport’ is two volumes of inspiration, process and work, charting artist Daniel Arsham’s oeuvre inspired by the icons and forms of the automotive industry
-
Era-defining photographer David Bailey guides us through the 1980s in a new tome not short of shoulder pads and lycraFrom Yves Saint Laurent to Princess Diana, London photographer David Bailey dives into his 1980s archive in a new book by Taschen
-
Inside Joan Didion’s unseen diary of personal relationships and post-therapy notesA newly discovered diary by Joan Didion is soon to be published. Titled 'Notes to John', the journal documents her relationship with her daughter, husband, alcoholism, and depression
-
Carsten Höller’s new Book of Games: 336 playful pastimes for the bold and the boredArtist Carsten Höller invites readers to step out of their comfort zone with a series of subversive games
-
Distracting decadence: how Silvio Berlusconi’s legacy shaped Italian TVStefano De Luigi's monograph Televisiva examines how Berlusconi’s empire reshaped Italian TV, and subsequently infiltrated the premiership
-
Surrealism as feminist resistance: artists against fascism in Leeds‘The Traumatic Surreal’ at the Henry Moore Institute, unpacks the generational trauma left by Nazism for postwar women
-
How a sprawling new book honours the legacy of cult photographer Larry Fink‘Larry Fink: Hands On / A Passionate Life of Looking’ pays homage to an American master. ‘He had this ability to connect,’ says publisher Daniel Power
