Simon Roberts | An Avoidable Loss
[ Exhibition )
This exhibition presented a reflective journey with a week-long screening of artist Simon Roberts’ compelling film, ‘An Avoidable Loss, A Failure of State’.
This poignant piece weaves Roberts’ seascape photographs, captured daily during the COVID-19 pandemic, with government press conference recordings, personal testimonials, and a moving monologue by actor, Rory Kinnear.
The film was shown at the Gallery for the fourth anniversary of the first lockdown of the pandemic and encouraged us to contemplate the profound impact of the crisis. Exploring themes of grief, outrage, and asking critical questions surrounding the government’s response, it offered an immersive experience that some found emotionally challenging. Four years on from the pandemic, the film tried to comprehend the unprecedented challenges faced by society in 2020.
Simon Roberts
Simon Roberts (b.1974) is a prominent visual artist hailing from Brighton, UK. Renowned for his expansive, tableau-style photographs capturing the essence of the British landscape, Roberts’ artistic repertoire extends to encompass video, text, and installation pieces. This multifaceted approach allows him to explore profound themes of identity and belonging, as well as the intricate interplay between history, place, and culture.
He has exhibited widely and his photographs reside in major public and private collections, including here at Pallant House Gallery, the George Eastman House, Deutsche Börse Art Collection and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
In 2019, Roberts’ exhibition Inscapes at Pallant House offered a photographic meditation on the hinterland of Sussex, exploring how we connect to our local landscapes and how we capture the essence of a place. He produced a series of photographic, video- and sound-based landscape studies.
