Anna Fox (b.1961, UK) has been working in photography and video for over thirty years, and is known for a combative, highly charged use of flash and colour.
For two years Fox documented holiday culture at the Butlin’s resort in the seaside town of Bognor Regis, West-Sussex. The work was commissioned by Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, and supported by Butlins and University for the Creative Arts, to mark the 75th anniversary of this iconic leisure brand.
Butlin’s is a British institution and an established cultural phenomenon, with a very particular character, history and identity. Having attracted tens -of -millions of holidaymakers since its creation in 1936, the popularity of Butlin’s popularity peaked in the 1970s, but today it remains a thriving centre for family holidays and themed leisure breaks. Shot using both large and medium-format, Fox's deeply saturated colour photographs provide a fascinating update to a holiday icon most often associated with the golden era of British seaside culture. The Resort series consists of two parts, the first focusing on wholesome family holidays, the second on the new wave adult breaks.
Anna Fox's works continue an important lineage of photographs on the subject of Butlin's folklore, most notably, John Hinde and Martin Parr whose works are exhibited alongside Fox’s in By the Seaside. Anna Fox's contemporary interpretation juxtaposes the intimacy of personal relations with the surrealism of the setting to suggest playful-and sometimes critical-parodies of the experience of the British family camp.
Anna Fox is represented by the Centre for British Photography. Click here to see further images.