Edmund Sumner’s ‘Traces’ exhibition makes international press debut

A few weeks ago, Edmund Sumner exhibited his ‘Traces’ collection at the practice, inviting pedestrians passing along Bury Place to reflect on the role architectural photographers can play in ‘preserving’ sites of cultural, historical, and spiritual significance.

The subject matter was diverse and encompassed a broad topography extending from Hacienda Holl in Mexico to Cava Arcari in Italy and the Lost Waiting Room in Peckham, but the six photographs all demonstrated the capacity of quality architectural photography to capture the resonances of built environments as they are experienced in real time. Since then, ‘Traces’ has made a number of appearances in the press.

Writing from Seoul after making an appearance at Edmund’s private view at the practice, C3Globe observed that ‘the exhibition showcases photographs that transcend traditional architectural imagery‘; that ‘Sumner’s approach infuses each image with a sense of memory and emotional response to spaces, whether real or imagined’.

For ArchDaily, the exhibition exposed the ‘emotional power of architecture’, making manifest the time-honoured ‘conviction that places retain energy and bear the imprints of their past’.  Edmund Sumner is prepared to ‘[go] beyond documentation, offering a nuanced narrative of human interaction with the built environment’.

Others have taken a more focused approach, exploring the stories behind each of the photographs, and the ways in which they engage with and reinforce the wider sequence. There has been commentary on the themes of absence, presence, and change in Edmund’s Italian scene. Others have drawn attention to heritage policy and its shaping influence on spaces like Peckham Rye Railway Station, for better and for worse. An important aspect of all critique of Edmund’s work is a concern with the interplay between architectural history and wider social, cultural, and economic histories which have developed in and around buildings of cultural significance. It is this that appealed to the practice, and it is this that has placed him among the forerunners of contemporary ‘photojournalism’.