Edgar Martins | The Time Machine
Photofusion is pleased to announce an exhibition of the latest topographical series by photographer Edgar Martins. Renowned for his unsettling yet strangely familiar images of urban spaces, The Time Machine presents a survey of hydro-electricity generating plants. This photography exhibition will include a selection of works not yet exhibited in England.
In 2010 and 2011, Martins gained exclusive access to 20 power plants located across Portugal. Many were built between the 1950s and 1970s, a time of hopeful prospects for rapid economic growth and social change throughout the country. Forty years on, these plants are mainly computer operated. No more than half a dozen people, including specialists, cleaning and security staff, now run these plants which, in some cases, were intended to house up to 250 workers just a few decades ago.
The Time Machine records objects and spaces whose grand and progressive designs testify to the scope and ambition of the vision they were built to serve. Although the power stations were conceived at a time when man and machine envisaged a shared future, today, these deserted technical sites allude to the paradox of this impossibility.
Martins’ photographs recall science-fiction and in an unavoidable field of nostalgia, characterise a suspended time; that of the modern. In recovering a past of exciting technological innovation and optimistic belief in the future, The Time Machine speaks not just about the generation of power but also of dreams and technological utopias.
Edgar Martins was born in Évora in 1977, but grew up in Macau, China. In 1996 he moved to the UK, where he later completed an MA in Photography and Fine Art at the Royal College of Art, London. Martins’ work is represented internationally and he has published several monographs, of which the first Black Holes & Other Inconsistencies was awarded the Thames & Hudson and RCA Society Book Art Prize. Martins has been the recipient of numerous international awards for his photography, including the New York Photography Award (Fine Art category) in 2008, SONY World Photography Award (Landscape category) in 2009 and was selected to represent Macau at the 54th Venice Biennale.
The Time Machine: An incomplete and semi-objective survey of hydropower stations – a monograph by Edgar Martins will be available to buy from the gallery throughout the exhibition, including essays by Geoff Dyer and João Pinharanda.
This exhibition was produced in conjunction with Fundação EDP and the international tour was supported by The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK branch) & Instituto Camões (Portugal). Courtesy: The Wapping Project Bankside & Mr. Jason Steen.
