Dark Tales

With images spanning a period of more than 80 years, Dark Tales explores the complex relationship between the Gothic and British documentary photography, depicting Britain from the post-war to the present era. The photographs in the exhibition reveal waning industrial powers, claustrophobic domestic scenes, and menacing nocturnal activities.


Dark Tales brings together a selection of renowned images alongside lesser-known photographs, primarily selected from over 5000 prints in the Martin Parr Foundation collection by curator Isaac Blease. The emerging, playful narrative shows a resilient yet haunted place. It illustrates photography’s role in visualising emotions such as fear and fascination while amplifying the Gothic principle that horror thrives in proximity to the familiar.

Interest in the Gothic resurfaces during times of uncertainty, and documentary photography itself is in a dark moment, with its purpose and role in question, public distrust of ‘photographers’, and the existential threat posed by Artificial Intelligence. This moment of turmoil presents intriguing conditions to explore the Gothic imagination as a relevant lens through which to re-examine the medium, while also reveling in the ambiguity of images and the multitude of meanings they evoke.’
– Isaac Blease, Curator