For Lost Gill spent a month photographing people consulting maps on the streets of London. The subjects were photographed unawares, sometimes with people who have come to their aid. For Hackney Flowers Gill spent two years photographing Hackney Wick Market and the surrounding area to create base images. Onto these images he laid flowers, seeds and other ephemera which had collected in the area and pressed. He then re-photographed his arrangements to convey the multi-layered history and culture of the place. He even buried some of his prints around Hackney and then re-photographed them, complete with the remains of soil and detritus from the area they depict. Gill has written: “Hackney is a place that attracts obsessives. It’s something to do with its contradictions: you can be in a beautiful spot with canals and meadows, and then the flipside is chaos and dirt. That’s what I’m trying to grapple with.” These two suites of photographs are the first works by Gill to be acquired by the Museum of London.

Provenance

The artist