Photographer Mark Power will be joining us to discuss recent projects, challenges in documentary practice and being a Magnum photographer. The talk will start at 6.30pm in the Mining Institute’s Lecture Theatre and will be followed by refreshments in the Library.
As a child Mark Power discovered his father’s home-made enlarger in the family attic, a contraption consisting of an upturned flowerpot, a domestic lightbulb and a simple camera lens. His interest in photography probably began at this moment, although he later chose to do illustration – specialising in life drawing and painting – instead. He (somewhat accidentally) ‘became a photographer’ in 1983, working in the editorial and charity markets for nearly ten years, before he began teaching in 1992. This coincided with a shift towards long-term, self initiated projects which now sit comfortably alongside a number of large-scale commissions in the industrial sector.
Power’s work has been seen in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the world and is in several public and private collections. He has published six books: ‘The Shipping Forecast’ (1996), ‘Superstructure’ (2000), ‘The Treasury Project’ (2002), ’26 Different Endings’ (2007), ‘The Sound of Two Songs’ (2010) and ‘Mass’ (2013).
Mark Power joined Magnum Photos in 2002.