Bridget Smith

Text by Sukhdev Sandhu

Society documents the empty internal spaces of a variety of London clubs, from the Kurdish Community Centre, to the Masons, the Fabian Society, The Indian Workers Association and the National Association of Flower Arrangers. The photographs provide a resonant and evocative portrait of rich hidden worlds operating within the city, revealing the interior spaces where communities gather. The series explores how people express their identity, their interests, and concerns to create their own worlds, expressed through artifact and architecture. The work produces a strange tension between public and private, between beauty and the everyday. Bridget Smith is a photographer who has an on-going interest in architecture and the public realm and the emotional resonance within built form. She has an international reputation for photographing interiors and landscapes devoid of people. These places have often been sites of public leisure (cinema auditoria) or private fantasy (themed hotel rooms, glamour studios). In Society, Bridget’s work starts shifting towards a preoccupation with people and the worlds they create.