Simon Norfolk

Simon Norfolk (Nigeria, 1963) studied

philosophy and sociology at Oxford

and Bristol Universities and subsequently

worked for several years as a press photographer.

In 1994 he turned to landscape

photography and is now a well-known

photographer of significant battlefields

and everything related to war. Works such

as For Most Of It I Have No Words: Genocide,

Landscape, Memory (1998) and Afghanistan:

Chronotopia (2002) have won him several

prizes. He exhibits all over the world and is

much in demand in the media as a speaker

and an expert.

Norfolk’s series The Arizona/Mexico Border:

Soy una raya en el mar focusses on the border

area that has been ‘secured’ by the United

States with a welded-steel fence, pending

the construction of a more advanced ‘separation

system’ that will be able to detect

every unwanted intruder. The photos show

a split landscape: on the one side, a vibrant

nighttime city; on the other, brightly lit but

deserted hills. In the American half of the

desert, we occasionally see the clothes, water

bottles and other items abandoned by

migrants who have attempted to make the

crossing.

For the series The LHC: The Spirit of Enquiry

Norfolk photographed the particle accelerator

at the CERN near Geneva. This scientific

quest for the ‘Theory of Everything’

exhibits a peculiarly modern kind of scientific

fundamentalism and is so all-embracing

that it is almost theological. The photos

of the enormous circular installations

deep under the ground are reminiscent

of church domes or Tibetan mandalas.

Norfolk has captured an important moment

in the long-pilgrimage of science.