SHOWStudio’s Lou Stoppard and academic Adam Murray have joined together to co-curate a new exhibition, North: Identity, Photography, Fashion, which opens this week at Somerset House, having transferred from the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool.

The exhibition brings together designers, fashion photographers and artists, with contributors that include Raf Simons, Jamie Hawkesworth, Glen Luchford and Turner-prize winning artist Mark Leckey. At the crux of the exhibition is a desire to explore the mythology around the North and its culture, decodifying the traditional narrative around the region and instead investigating how it has really influenced contemporary style.

In a post-Brexit era, the exhibition is both timely and surprisingly overdue. As Adam Murray notes in his essay ‘The Constructed North‘, since Agyness Deyn’s rise to stardom in 2008, ideas of the North have long inspired and informed the zeitgeist. However the personal, more visceral experience of the area and its influence has yet to have been investigated – until now.

North: Identity, Photography, Fashion is at Somerset House until 4th February 2018. 

All images courtesy of Open Eye Gallery.

Tags: Lou Stoppard, North, SHOWstudio