Trent Parke at the Bristol Photo Festival

In his series, Monument, Trent Parke (b.1971) brings together images captured over a 25-year period on the streets of Sydney and Adelaide, Australia. For the photographer, the series is nothing less than a visual time capsule for an imaginary end of the world: a way to tell the story of Earth – a monument to humanity. It takes the form of a single filmic narrative completely devoid of language, in which the Earth is approached from space.

The exhibition, open at the Martin Parr Foundation from 3 October to 22 December 2024 as part of the 2024 Bristol Photo Festival, marks the first time the project is presented in Europe. 
Endless struggles, the Big Bang, space, eternity: these are the themes around which Monument is loosely structured. The complex installation – which encompasses a film, a slideshow, as well as maquettes of the photo book released by Stanley/Barker last year – is designed to create a multi-layered, deeply immersive experience. The development of the project was influenced by Max Richter’s Never Goodbye, which happened to be playing in the background when Parke began the editing process. It became his personal soundtrack for the storyboard, the sequence of works and the overall narrative.

“I wanted something that started off very simple but had that feeling of melancholy, before spiralling out of control to eventually end up the same way that it started,” the artist explains. “It’s the human race as a blip in the life of the universe spanning the dawn of time.” 

In LFI 6.2023, we dedicated a comprehensive portfolio to Trent Parke’s Monument series.