The Packed Lunch exhibition and photobook represent the culmination of our time on BA Documentary Photography at the University of South Wales. A jam-packed visual feast, Packed Lunch invites its audience to unpack and consume what is in front of them.
The title Packed Lunch is a fictional extrapolation of the often-quoted ethos of good
organisation exemplified by “sensible shoes”, so essential to the founder of our course David Hurn in 1973, to whom we are always indebted.
Packed Lunch is secondly an allegorical nod to the endless complexity of the practice of documentary, questioned in the ‘subjective turn’ in the medium in the 1970s and 80s, and still very much in debate today. The diverse menu of storytelling presented here reflects the interplay of subjective fiction and objective truth in our work... Don’t take this idea too seriously, it’s a bit of fun.
- David Harrhy, on behalf of the Doc Phot class of 2022.
