‘I feel for this generation’: Welcome to Brexit island – in pictures

Robert Darch: ‘I grew up in a small town in the Midlands. At the time it felt landlocked and I was always exploring the edges, trying to find a way out. The winter skies were heavy, still and grey. I made trips back to the Midlands to photograph for The Island and captured Ella, as a lone figure in a field on the edge of my home town’ The Island is available to purchase from www.robertdarch.com

‘Daisy and Will. I completed The Island in 2019, only publishing it this year. Daisy remarked to me recently, that “the whole concept feels all the more pertinent now” as we head into a dark winter. I couldn’t have predicted the future, but I had a feeling’

‘Abi, photographed on the edge of The Island. The subjects in the book act as stand-ins, both reflecting my feelings and acting as representations of their generation in the fictional space I have created’

‘The Valley of the Rocks. The Island was conceived as a response to the Brexit vote and the heaviness I felt about that decision. Rather than trying to explain or rationalise what happened I started taking pictures that reflected how I felt about the freedoms we had lost and what I imagined the future would hold’

‘Abi, in a cave. I made portraits of young people as I believe they will feel the effect of the decision to leave the EU the most. In general there was a large divide in how people voted, with the majority of young voters wanting to stay in the European Union’

‘A holiday chalet, photographed in midwinter. Pillows piled up, pushing against the window. Outside, a pillow hangs over the decking as if slowly trying to escape the confines of the building’

‘An old swing, whose chains have broken at some point, has been re-hung with cord. The original seat, replaced with a bit of old driftwood, hangs lower than it used to’

‘Devon, photographed in an old greenhouse. I spent 10 years working in an art centre and a cinema. Both jobs were badly paid and zero hours contracts, but I met some lovely people, including Devon who worked in the bar’

‘Twilight on the river Exe. I am drawn to landscapes that feel like they should inhabit a storybook, as words or illustrations rather than something that exists in reality’

‘Ruby, just before the snow. My formative years were the mid 90s: cool Britannia, Britart, Britpop and the promise of New Labour. I feel for this generation. Cost of living, Covid, the climate crisis and the threat of nuclear war’

‘Princetown prison. Built in the middle of bleak and desolate Dartmoor in 1809, to accommodate Napoleonic prisoners of war who were originally housed in derelict ships’

‘The book ends with this image of a de-limbed tree photographed at dusk, in the fog’