Photographer Jack Lander Questions the Unreliability of Photography and Scottish Politics

With Brexit and the Scottish Referendum as case studies, the project explores how both images and politics are based on power and trust.

“Between Nukes and Holes In The Road” uses photography as a medium to explore contemporary politics in Scotland. Through an experimental, research lead approach this study attempts to mirror and ape the fractured political structures it explores.

Economist Paul Krugman writes, “Everything is political. Politicians brush aside facts that don’t fit and make claims they have to know are false. I don’t know what they really believe, but does it really matter?”. (Krugman P. 2020)

In 2014 the Scottish electorate was asked to decide whether they thought Scotland should be a country independent of The United Kingdom. A complex decision is distilled into a simple question, yes or no? The result was predictably divisive, 55% voted No vs 45% who voted Yes, and as such, it was an unsatisfactory conclusion for almost half the voting public. This year, on June the 29th 2022, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, reignited the contentious debate by announcing, “There will be a second independence referendum on Thursday the 19th of October 2023”. UK Prime minister Boris Johnson replied, “No, there won’t”.  

Set against a backdrop of Brexit and Scotland’s potential secession from the UK, this work explores power and trust in a time of obfuscated political rhetoric. The photographs are intentionally subjective and elusive (but not random or without meaning). The work actively avoids the simplified binaries that are a mainstay of contemporary political discourse; good and bad, left or right, yes or no, and where possible circumvents rigid signifiers of politics and nation in favour of a more fractured and nuanced visual impression of a country and its political representatives. An onus is put on the reader to work between the lines, and avoid grand narratives and photography’s truth claims to question whether politicians and photography are equally unreliable narrators.

Words and pictures by Jack Lander

Jack Lander lives in Glasgow, Scotland. He is currently studying for an MA in Documentary Photography at The University of South Wales. His ongoing work and research are focused on the ways in which photography and documentary practice can be used to critique and unsettle power structures while visualising the political and exploring the inherent violence in acts of photography and representation. He is working towards making a book of his work on this subject. Follow him on Instagram and PhMuseum. 

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This feature is part of Story of the Week, a selection of relevant projects from our community handpicked by the PhMuseum curators.