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After Redundancy, Architects, Building, Photos, News, Design, Architecture, Office

After Redundancy Project : Information + Images

Architect Portraits Project by James Whitaker, UK

21 Jan 2010

After Redundancy exhibition

RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London, UK
3 Feb - 22 Feb

The series featured on BBC2's The Culture Show, 4 Feb

9 Dec 2009

After Redundancy - Portraiture Project

Photographs © James Whitaker

Portraits of architects who were made redundant within 2008-09

Adrian	Andrew	Beth	Bethan
Caroline	Daniel	Dominic	George
Ivan	James	James Whitaker	Jamie
Josephine	Leisa	Liam	Neal
Neil	Nick	Rebecca	Sagit
Sam	Sarah	Sophie	Yasmin

After Redundancy - Portraiture Project Background

On 20th March 2009 the Guardian reported that the Royal Institute of British Architects' president, Sunand Prasad, estimated that 30% of architects were unemployed or under-employed.

Two weeks later, on 1st April 2009, James Whitaker was made redundant from one of the UK's leading design studios and set out to pursue a long standing ambition of working as a freelance photographer.

Quickly discovering that he was not alone in finding redundancy a life changing event James began work on a portraiture project studying the effects of redundancy on architects. Ranging from chefs to cake shop owners, lighting designers to journalists, and even back to architects, After Redundancy documents the directions taken by twenty-four individuals from the architectural profession after being made redundant during the 2008-2009 recession.

After Redundancy - Portraiture Project Exhibitions

Howies, 42 Carnaby Street, London : 14 Dec 2009 - 28 Jan 2010
RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London : 3 - 22 Feb 2010

Previously:

27 Jul 2009

Architect Portraits

Information from James Whitaker

At the start of April I was made redundant from a prominent London design studio, and so decided to follow my ambition of becoming a freelance photographer.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to friends and started to realise that I was not alone in taking advantage of the recession to pursue other interests.

Amongst the people that I spoke to some have found architectural work again, while others have turned to teaching or academia, labour on sites, medical admin, others have become artists, restaurateurs, chefs, photographers, lighting designers, journalists...the list goes on.

So I have now started work on a photography project taking portraits of architects who have been made redundant within the last twelve months, documenting the new directions that it has taken them. My aim is to gather around 30-40 portraits and then organise them into an exhibition.

Modern Architects

Comments / photos for the After Redundancy Architecture page welcome: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

After Redundancy : page - adrian welch / isabelle lomholt

Website: www.whitakerstudio.co.uk

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