shashasha

It was while living in Preston in 2010 that the city’s imposing Brutalist bus station, built by Ove Arup and Partners in 1969, first caught Hawkesworth’s eye. “I did a project with Adam Murray, an ex-tutor of mine, where we spent the weekend at the bus station and produced a little newspaper filled with portraits of the teenagers we saw there”. A few years later when Hawkesworth heard of plans to demolish the iconic building he determined to "move back to Preston for a month and spend every day in the bus station taking photographs. The station is one big loop, and I just walked around it all day, every day, just waiting for people to pop out at me. I tried not to think about it any more than that, it was just whoever would catch my eye in a particular moment. It was a centre for Megabus so if a bus comes from up North, it goes through Preston to go South, so there was always an influx of really interesting people coming through the station. When I found someone, I’d ask to take their portrait and that was it. To a certain extent, I was trying to be spontaneous about it; whether it was an old man, a kid with a funny haircut or interesting shoes – I just let anything be photographed.” After seven years since Hawkesworth began the project his first monograph Preston Bus Station was published fall 2017 by Dashwood Books while he prepares for a major exhibition "Landscape with Tree, 14 rooms by Jamie Hawkesworth" at Huis Marseille, Museum of Photography in Amsterdam.