About the Project

Passionate about people and life, Martin Parr spent his whole career documenting society in its ordinary routines and quirkiness. A keen observer, his images capture social behaviours with subtle irony that makes us smile. Often focused on the British, his recordings of life and its rituals always have a universal resonance.

This exhibition was conceived as a hymn to love. Love for Parr’s work, a small but happy celebration of his vision; and love as the glue that holds this hectic world together and that he managed to capture so wittingly.

A section of the exhibition is dedicated to his series Bored Couples. It depicts couples, including himself and his wife Susan, embodying the loss of excitement within a relationship. The other images are a selection of (maybe) non-bored couples, embracing, kissing, passionate about their being together. Or so it seems. “The icing on the cake” we can say, are actual tacky cakes and sweets that are in their own caustic manner an ode to love.