Brendan Berry

(from "Intimate Distance") © Brendan Berry


(from "Intimate Distance") © Brendan Berry


(from "Intimate Distance") © Brendan Berry


(from "Intimate Distance") © Brendan Berry


(from "Intimate Distance") © Brendan Berry


(from "Intimate Distance") © Brendan Berry


Brendan Berry Graduated from University of Wales Newport in 2009 with BA (Hons) Documentary Photography


“Intimate Distance”

“On April 12th 1961 Yuri Gagarin, in the Vostok 1 spacecraft - launched by the Soviet space programme - became the first human cosmonaut to leave the earth’s atmosphere and achieve spaceflight. Eight years later the first American astronauts landed on the moon, which still remains the furthest distance humanity has travelled from its birthplace.
Despite the rapid growth and improvement in technology over the last forty years, the advancement of space flight has been relatively slow. However, as the uncertainties facing our planet’s future proliferate and intensify, many nations have begun to invest large sums of money in astronomy and cosmology. In total, thirteen space agencies have now been formulated, of which NASA is just one.
On the north-eastern coastline of Norfolk lies the community of Happisburgh, a large village with a rich history dating back to the eleventh century. The people of Happisburgh are being labelled Europe’s first “climate refugees”, and in less than fifty years the entire neighbourhood will lie in ruins, deep below the North Sea.
These photographs of Happisburgh are inspired by an astronaut's-eye view of earth, in all its ineffable beauty and fragility. They express a view of our micro and macro cosmology and act as a porthole through which people may enter into a greater understanding of our universe's entirety and of the challenges facing humanity in years to come. In their abstraction the images reflect man’s interaction with the environment and express the transience of life and the implacable, destructive erosion taking place within this struggling area. That which we share on earth is far greater than that which divides us; and seeing earth from space permits these divisions to dissolve. In truth we comprise only one race: earthlings.

“We are entering an increasingly dangerous period of our history. Our population and use of the finite resources of planet earth are growing exponentially along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But, our genetic code still carries a selfish and aggressive instinct for survival. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million. Our only chance of long tern survival is not to remain inward looking, but to spread out into space.”
Professor Stephen Hawking – 2008, NASA’s 50th Anniversary

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