Ian Howorth is a photographer currently based in Brighton, UK. Having lived in various places as a child, Ian’s work looks to unlock a sense of nostalgia from his youth when he used to visit the UK with his father.
About Arcadia – words by Ian Howorth and Alice De Santis:
Arcadia has been referred to in popular culture as a utopian vision for centuries. A fictional place which is fertile and bountiful. A promised land of milk and honey. Held aloft by artists, poets and playwrights as a depiction of one’s individual paradise. Now eroded by times relentless indifference to change, it remains lodged in our collective psyche as a touchstone.
In this, his first monograph, Ian Howorth looks to use this existing cultural framework to explore his personal connections to his own utopian ideal of ‘home’. Having relocated many times as a child before finally settling in Britain, his relationship with this concept has been fraught. Often considering himself an outsider.
The images in this series capture a retro nostalgia and constantly question our preconceived ideas of beauty. Arcadia takes us from the serene if not metronomic seaside towns of the South to the Working Mens Clubs and forgotten factories of the North. Through his unique style and mastery of film, Ian highlights a contemporary Britain suffocated by its past whilst allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions.
Before coming to the UK which countries left their mark on your history? How do your past memories influence your work?
I think all the countries i lived in prior to the UK – Peru and the US have had a huge effect on me. I think being that young, it’s impossible for anything not to affect major parts of you. The US had always fascinated me even before going to live there when i was 12 – i’d been going on holiday there since being a toddler and the incredible difference in way of life, aesthetics to Peru always had me asking questions. In many ways, it’s how it shaped how i thought, and why i questioned the things that i did that made its mark.
In your book you describe Arcadia as an imaginary fertile and generous place, despite the wars and pandemics of recent years, do you think it is still possible to get there?
I think most people have a different idea of what that fertility is – for some its fertility of thought and freedom for others it’s more literal than that. I’d like to think that good can come from anything. Life, wherever it might be is not all rainbows and lollipops, it’s hard, it’s what you do to come out of the other side that counts ultimately. The pandemic hit everyone pretty hard and in different ways – but at the same time, as a people, good things were also able to come out of it – which just shows that we are incredibly resilient. War on the other hand, well – its never good, but history has taught us that much of our history is built on war. I would still prefer a world were that wouldn’t happen of course, but we have to try to look ahead, of how we can rebuild and teach whoever we can that it isn’t the way forward.
The retro nostalgia of your images takes us to a world that no longer belongs to us. What is the message you want to share with your audience?
Its a nice way to put it! I like the unusual, and the questions raised by unusual places or things that exist amid the modern world that seem to have no place there. Why are they still there, how have they survived. I’ve always been interested in this undercurrent of the meaning of culture that exists all around us. for me its like a language, our attachment to things and the cultural meaning behind them. At a deeper and more personal level, it’s like a self test to see if I ‘get” the place i now live – not being native to it. I guess I’m trying to see if these images resonate with others too. I think photography, like with many forms of art, is a way to communicate ideas and thoughts and i guess in many ways, to try and make sense of things and see if there is common thought.
What do you expect from the future?
I like to be prepared for the bad but always excited about the good things. It’s sometimes difficult to get the balance right. With what’s going on at the moment it can be difficult to see beyond the bad, but i believe it’s there somewhere.
