Andrew Hillard

In 2018 I moved back to the UK after living in Europe since 2003, though I had been back for short visits this was to be the longest time spent in the country in 15 years.

Because of Brexit my time as a European citizen was over and benefits such as the possibility to work and travel more freely over with it. Then in 2020 came the pandemic and with it lockdown and my world became even smaller.

Originally I started making the photographs to better understand the place and situation I was in, and then because of Covid restrictions walking with my camera became my permitted daily exercise.

Rather than focus on the situation from a purely personal or even political point of view I wanted to portray the significance of this definitive change in the people I encountered and in the city that has since become my home.

A sense of identity is something we both give to and receive from our surroundings, and it is this process of push and pull or give and take that I feel naturally drawn to.