Simon Roberts is a British photographer with a deep interest in people’s connection to, and use of, place. His work frequently touches on notions of Britishness, his Merri Albion series looked at the landscape of a “small island” through public, communal experiences from political and activistic, through to cultural and ideological. His National Property series considered historical notions of the picturesque in its gaze of important British sites of nautral and built history, including those replicated in art history, but with carefully observed contemporary uses by the modern age’s visitors.




He has also turned his large-format camera onto piers, his Pierdom series looking at those extremeties of the built edge of the country, where pleasure penetrates into the sea, seemingly at once trying to help people leave the island but also extending its reach.

His most recent body of work looks further afield, and over the course of three years into deeper, more contemplive spaces, than those of funfairs, country houses, and battle reenactments.

In Cathedrals Are Built In The Future, Roberts has carried out a deep study of Cuban’s religious spaces, across all their architectural forms. From the splendour of Havana’s Catholic cathedral, through to makeshift spaces of spiritual pause in corners, basements, and appropriated buildings.

In his project text, the artist writes:

Although officially a secular country – between 1960 and 1992 Cuba was declared an atheist state – the number of practicing Christians is growing and practitioners now attend church without fear of retribution. There is a rapid spread of evangelical denominations across the island with Baptist, Pentecostal and Methodist churches increasing their congregations alongside hundreds of tiny churches that have popped up in Cubans’ living rooms.



In his de-peopled spaces, the viewer of Roberts’ photographs can pause as if they too are worshipping, but worshipping across the whole spectrum of beliefs. The detail shines through - whether the light quality, the glimmer from gold gilding, or the personal touches of how a space has been adapted and used.

Though the majority of spaces the artist recorded are internal, the city can be glimpsed through the design, material, colour and maintenance present.
 




The work sits alongside a two-screen video piece exploring the role and history of religious ritual on the island, narrated with words of Fidel Castro.

The project was realised as part of a two-year collaboraation between ISA, Universidad de las Artes in Havana and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, working towards projects by Roberts and three other artists currently in exhibition at the Cultuurecentrum in Mechelen, Belgium.