Isle of Man

Chris Killip (1946-2020)

Traditional Manx rural community life on the Isle of Man before economic transition toward offshore finance and commercial development.

Description

In Chris Killip’s Isle of Man, created between 1970 and 1973, the photographer provides an intimate examination of the island's residents—farmers, fishermen, and rural laborers—highlighting their intricate relationship with the land and sea. Following an influential exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art that featured the works of photographers Paul Strand and Walker Evans, Killip abandoned commercial photography and returned to his birthplace, the Isle of Man, to capture the island's people and environment before commercialism and financial industries reshaped its social fabric.

Killip's project emerged within the significant socio-economic transformation of the Isle of Man during the late 1960s and early 1970s, as it rapidly became a tax haven. This shift threatened the island's long-standing agricultural and fishing communities, prompting Killip to document the nuances of a society on the brink of profound change. His photographs thus function as a historical record, underscoring the tension between the island’s ancient traditions and its evolving economic landscape.

The aesthetic style of the project is characterized by Killip’s meticulous compositions using a 4x5 plate camera on a tripod, emphasizing deliberate and thoughtful framing. His use of black-and-white film contributes to a somber, reflective atmosphere, allowing viewers to engage deeply with the distilled realities captured.

Technically, Killip employed a 5x4 plate camera, necessitating prolonged exposure times and a patient, deliberate approach to photography. Without local darkroom facilities, Killip traveled to London to process his negatives, underscoring the deliberate pace and precision that defined the project's working process.

Exhibited early at the Witkin Gallery, New York (1973) and later in retrospectives at Museum Folkwang, Essen (2012), LE BAL, Paris (2012), Tate Britain (2014), and the Manx Museum (2016), the series was first consolidated in Isle of Man: A Book about the Manx (Arts Council of Great Britain, 1980) and re-edited as Isle of Man Revisited (Steidl, 2015), securing its place as a cornerstone of post-war British documentary photography.

Behind the work

Upon returning to the Isle of Man, Killip decided firmly not to be a commercial photographer. He realised that photography could be done for his own sake.

To support his Isle of Man project, Killip worked in his father's pub in the evening, relying on his father's support financially. His parents ran the Highlander pub on the Isle of Man.

In preparation for a retrospective in Germany nearly three decades after the original publication, Killip revisited his Isle of Man negatives, uncovering previously overlooked images. This process culminated in the 2015 release of Isle of Man Revisited, an expanded edition featuring approximately 250 photographs.

Quotes by the photographer

"I went to the Isle of Man really because I understood my own position. I was Manx. Being in the Isle of Man I had access to all sorts of things I knew other people didn’t have access to. I valued a lot of things in the Isle of Man. I also knew that to put myself into a phase where I could work seriously would be good for me. I mean, I would benefit greatly from it in terms of the experience that it would lend to my photography."

"It was strange—when I knocked on someone's door, they'd say to me, ‘Well, who's your... Yes, I know your father and your mother, but who's your grandmother and who's your grandfather?’ And I would explain who they were. [...] When they'd heard all that, they were satisfied that it was okay for me to photograph them."

"My father owned a pub in the Isle of Man... every Sunday we as a family would go with him in the car to different sites... archaeological sites, old churches, look at farmhouses which he thought were interesting... I absorbed the idea of this ancient culture looking at Neolithic burial sites... it’s kind of strange, you know... you did feel very identified with that place—it was such a strong hold."

"After the Isle of Man, I knew how important it was that people knew me before I started photographing. So when I went somewhere to photograph, I often entered a community and didn’t photograph for a while—I just hung out and talked... It would take time for people to accept you. You had to come back all the time—not disappear—keep coming back, and then they got to have some confidence in you."

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