We’re extremely excited to be hosting the book launch and exhibition of Dougie Wallace’s ‘Harrodsburg‘, a wry look at the ‘one percent’ who are changing the face of London as they price out existing communities.
© Dougie Wallace/INSTITUTE
Critically acclaimed photographer Dougie Wallace continues to push the boundaries of the social documentary genre in his latest book, turning his attention to the rising economic and political power of the ‘one per cent’. Harrodsburg: an up-close wealth safari exploring the wildlife that inhabits the mega-rich residential and retail district of Knightsbridge and Chelsea.
The book is a powerful, timely and stark exposé of the emergence of an ultra-affluent elite who have turned London into a global reserve currency, changing the face of our city. Upper middle class natives have been priced out of Central London, first time buyers excluded and even old wealth is marginalised from their time-honoured habitats.
Wallace’s Harrodsburg exploits have been captured on film by documentary filmmaker Jack Cocker in a new series of ‘What Do Artists Do All Day’, which will form part of a BBC Four’s season celebrating British photography this spring.
© Dougie Wallace/INSTITUTE
Harrodsburg, which takes in Bromptom Road down to Sloane Square and up to The Ritz on Piccadilly, used to house London’s ‘posh’. Since the oil crisis of the mid-1970s, gulf millionaires began coming to Britain in larger numbers, settling first in Mayfair and later spreading to Knightsbridge. The tribes of oligarchs and ‘hedgies’ have joined the various tribes of the global super-rich buying up London homes as assets to appreciate rather than as homes in which to live.
Employing his trademark wit and keen eye for the absurd, Wallace has produced an uncompromisingly revealing series of pictures which satire the super rich and their spending habits in uncomfortably intimate, gaudy detail.
Come and join us for an evening at theprintspace gallery for the launch of the brand new Harrodsburg book.
Tuesday 21st March, 19.30-22.00
Entrance is free and drinks will be provided.
Exhibition runs: 16th – 21st March
Open Monday-Friday 09.00-19.00
‘What Do Artists Do All Day’ will be shown on Thursday 16th March on BBC 4 at 20:30pm
© Dougie Wallace/INSTITUTE
