Connecting Conversations: Photographer Martin Parr in conversation with Susie Godsil

Susie Godsil talks to photographer Martin Parr about his work over the last forty years and his observations of people in their various habitats at work or at play, at home or abroad, from Harrow School to the British working class at the seaside.

Martin Parr was born in Epsom Surrey in 1952. He had a passion for photography at a young age and was encouraged by his grandfather, George Parr, going on to study photography at Manchester Polytechnic in 1970. He is famous for his oblique approach to social documentary both in the UK and abroad and has more recently been involved in film-making and fashion photography and advertising.

In 2002 the Barbican art gallery and National Media Museum initiated a retrospective of his work. Parr has also exhibited at Haus der Kunst in Munich where his personal collections of photography and postcards were displayed in Parrworld in 2008.

Parr has worked as Professor of Photography at the University of Wales Newport campus and curated at the New York photo festival Typologies Exhibition. In 2008 at Photoespana he won the Baume et Mercier award in recognition of his professional career and contributions to contemporary photography.

Susie Godsil studied and taught French and German language and literature before specializing in teaching adolescents with emotional and behavioural difficulties. This work led to an interest in the psychological aspects of teaching and learning and to training as a psychotherapist and then a psychoanalyst. She lives and works in Leeds and is one of a growing group of psychoanalysts committed to helping make it more possible to train as a psychoanalyst from outside London. Over the last ten years she has organized annual symposia on Psychoanalysis and Opera in conjunction with Opera North and is interested more widely in the fruitfulness of linking with the creative arts.