visual essay
7th - 13th June 2021
G7 - St Ives
In June 2021 St Ives, Cornwall hosted the G7 summit whose focus is to agree responses towards global challenges with a priority on climate change.
This photographic essay captures scenes in town during this world event and focuses on the contrasts between seaside photography and the organisation that G7 requires around town. These film photographs act as visual accumulation of protests banners, policemen having ice cream, picturesque houses, and families on holidays that the place offered to observe that week.
Weeks before the seaside town got turned into a venue for G7, people progressively found themselves in the middle of surveillance controls, travel limitations, and work plans changed. Initially I felt almost excited to be able to say ‘I was there’ or ‘I’ve seen it happened’ but I quickly realised that I would not get anything from it personally and would in fact feel lost and overwhelmed by what I could see. The town became a sample of the whole country, representing the state of the nation, split between following rules and enjoying holidays by the sea. That visual essay attempts to capture this moment as it was, reflecting a special time and place, experienced by a young expatriated young woman facing political decisions and climate crisis.
I felt I was swimming against the current
The air and the sea were being occupied by Marine One and the Royal Navy patrol ships as the event would start. Alongside such protection, Extinction Rebellion set up a huge burning planet Earth on the beach with creative stalls, a music stage and food supplies so people could gather and protest peacefully, while armed forces were patrolling the promenade on the harbour and journalists in suits were live streaming with the rest of the world. Such contrasts were both intriguing, almost funny, slightly absurd. For a second, I felt very external to all this and was walking through town as a stranger, wondering what I was doing here. How to adapt and react? How to gather voices and raise awareness on what matters? I certainly did not have the answers to my questions, but I knew that by capturing those moments would help me staying curious and open to reflexion, debate, doubt and hope.
All photographs © Julia Gros 2021 - Fujifilm C200 - Minolta XG-1 50mm