Lewis Bush is a photographer, writer, curator and educator based in London. After studying history and working as a researcher for the United Nations Taskforce on HIV/AIDS he completed a MA in Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication in 2012. Since then he has developed a multidisciplinary practice which includes photography, writing and curation to explore ideas about the way power is created and exercised in the world.

For Metropole (2015) Bush investigated the transformation of London at the hands of unaccountable developers and property speculators. In Shadows of the State (2018), he examined the secret communications used by intelligence agencies, creating images from intercepted signals and uncovering a previously unknown geography of covert radio broadcast sites. More recently he completed Depravity’s Rainbow (2023) which investigates the connections between early space travel and colonialism and the Holocaust, and the impact of that history on the present.

Metropole (2014-2018)

Metropole records the brutally disorientating effects of this by documenting these legions of new luxury blocks as they are constructed and occupied. Multiple exposure photographs are combined with appropriated, repurposed photographs taken from the billboards of the developments, alongside extensive research into the property developers behind these schemes, including their extensive use of opaque offshore financial structures and unaccountable political lobbying.

Once known as the Metropole, London was the mother city at the heart of a vast empire which at its peak encompassed a quarter of all land on the planet. Its maternal name belied a profoundly hierarchical and unequal relationship with power radiating outwards from the urban heart, and territorial riches feeding back in return. The British Empire has long since collapsed but in its place has risen a new world power; globalised capitalism. London — rebranded an ‘investment opportunity’ — is now a city of continuous demolition, shifting cranes, and glittering new high rises.

Lewis arrived in Jersey in April after being named Archisle’s International Photographer in Residence. He received a bursary of £10,000 for an exhibition of new work which will take part between 20 and 29 September at Piquet House, on Royal Square.

While most of his time has been spent working on the exhibition, which will look into the finance industry and its influence on Jersey, Lewis has also been going into schools to teach the island’s students about photography. This week’s workshop was part of a partnership between Archisle and Jersey Youth Arts. Carmel Butel, Senior Youth Worker, explained that the workshop helps reach out a wider audience that might not have gotten the chance to see Lewis in schools.