Hackney Urban Survey #08 - Boundaries with Mark Power (21st Jun '25)

This workshop is a visual investigation of Hackney’s boundaries: not just the physical lines that divide, but also the imagined ones that shape our sense of place. There are only 15 places available for this workshop and it’s open to amateur and professional photographers, on a first come first served basis.

The photography activity will be followed by a collective review and a selection of images will be printed and presented on the same evening at a pop-up exhibition open to the public.

Mark Power ’s complex, meticulously crafted images - usually made with large format cameras - have earned him a reputation as one of the forerunners of British photography. 

For many years his work has been seen in numerous galleries and museums across the world, and is in several important collections, both public and private. 

However, Power considers himself to be primarily a book maker, and to date he has published fifteen: The Shipping Forecast (1996), a poetic response to the esoteric language of daily maritime weather reports; Superstructure (2000), a documentation of the construction of London's Millennium Dome; The Treasury Project (2002), about the restoration of a nineteenth-century historical monument: 26 Different Endings (2007), which depicts those landscapes unlucky enough to fall just off the edge of the London A-Z, a map which could be said to define the boundaries of the British capital; The Sound of Two Songs (2010), the culmination of his five year project set in contemporary Poland following her accession to the European Union; Mass (2013), an investigation into the power and wealth of the Polish Catholic church; Die Mauer ist Weg! (2014), about chance and choice when confronted, accidentally, with a major news event - in this case the fall of the Berlin Wall; Destroying the Laboratory for the Sake of the Experiment (2016), a collaboration with the poet Daniel Cockrill about pre-Brexit England; Icebreaker (2018) which documents two Finnish ships operating in the Bay of Bothnia; Terre a l’Amende (2021), the result of an artist-in-residency programme in the Channel Island of Guernsey, and the five-book, work-in-progress series, Good Morning, America, Volumes I (2018), II (2019), III (2020) and IV (2023), with Volume V to be published late 2025) A revised and much-expanded version of his first book, The Shipping Forecast was published in 2022, and Fashion, a compendium of Power’s construction pictures, will be available this summer. 

Power taught at the University of Brighton from 1992 until 2017, first as a Senior Lecturer, then as the Professor of Photography. He joined Magnum as a nominee in 2002, becoming a full member in 2007. He lives in Brighton, on the south coast of England, with his wife Jo and their dog Kodak.

• Work side by side with fellow photographers and acclaimed mentors to produce a collaborative photography project

• Learn how to shape and edit your work into a compelling documentary series on the built environment, with guidance and feedback from established photographers.

• Learn from and be inspired by powerful, relevant work connected to the workshop’s central theme

• Get thoughtful feedback on your work from the Mass Collective team and renowned photographers in an open, collaborative setting

• Collaborate on the curation of a flash exhibition that brings together the group’s vision in a single evening

• Get to know like-minded creatives

• Celebrate your photography work with a pop-up exhibition at the Photobook Cafe, a renowned creative hub near Old Street

Saturday 21st of June:

9.15am: Meet at the Photobook Cafe

9.30 am: Welcome and presentation of the day by Mass Collective

9.45 am: Talk + Q&A by Mark Power

11.00 am: Photography session in the field

2.00 pm: Participants come back to the Photobook Cafe for the archiving and editing session

4.30 pm: Collective sequencing and curation of the exhibition

5:30 pm - 7.00 pm: break

7.00 pm: exhibition opening

9.00 pm: End

Bring your own photography equipment (camera, tripod, etc.) and your laptop to download, select and retouch the images. If you do not have a laptop or a camera please let us know so we can assist you.

Technical note: because of the short time available to produce the exhibition it’s mandatory for everyone to shoot with digital cameras.

The workshop and exhibition will be held at the Photobook Café, 4 Leonard Circus, London EC2A 4DQ. Photography will take place around Hackney.

In case of light rain the workshop will still take place, though if the weather conditions are forecasted to be unsuitable for any outdoor activity (i.e. heavy rain or storm) we will notify you the day before at the latest to postpone the workshop to a near date. In case you are not available to reschedule you will be eligible for a full refund.

The participation fee is not refundable but can be transferred to another attendee. To transfer your participation, please email us at info@mass-collective.com and let us know the new attendee's full name and email address.

This excludes cases where the workshop is postponed due to adverse weather conditions. See the Weather section above for details.

The workshop will be confirmed with a minimum of 10 participants, if that number is not reached Mass reserves the right to cancel the workshop and refund the tickets to the subscribers.