Martin Parr

A true icon of contemporary photography, Martin Parr is famous for his quirky, pop shots documenting British society. Throughout his career, Parr has also taken numerous fashion photographs. Compiled for the first time in a book, this collection retraces more than 30 years of street photography, advertising campaigns and fashion shows. Since 1986, he has collaborated with leading brands and magazines. Without distinguishing between commissions and personal projects, the photographer takes ordinary places as his backdrop, placing passers-by and models on the same level. With bright, saturated colours and bold perspectives, these 250 images reveal his mischievous, unfiltered take on fashion. Fashion Faux Parr celebrates the vitality of Western fashion, while questioning the importance of appearance in our society.

Created specifically for Festival Images, the immersive photo booth uses a green screen colour separation overlay to allow visitors to insert them- selves into a selection of iconic images by Martin Parr. The You and Martin are a Pa(i)rr installation invited festivalgoers to find their spot in these apparently mundane scenes of life, just like the British photographer would in his souvenir portraits from his travels. This was an opportunity for everyone to look at these famous shots from a new perspective and try to find an original way to interact physically with the subject and composition of the selected image, in other words, to “pair up with Parr”.

For 40 years, the unmissable Martin Parr has been delivering a biting vision of modern society and its shortcomings, pointing to the excesses of the leisure industry and mass tourism. Drawn from a series on Switzerland and its many clichés, the photograph of a vacationer admiring the mountains in Zermatt, as if he were encrusted in the panorama, was displayed in monumental format on one of the town’s largest facades. This over 500-m2 installation Think of Switzerland was conceived in such a way that, from a given viewpoint, it created the illusion of continuity with the actual alpine landscape behind the building.