Nick JS Thompson
Nick JS Thompson is a documentary photographer who focuses on communities and the effect they have on their surrounding landscape. Born in 1988, Thompson spent his formative years documenting BMX and its associated subcultures, before moving into travel photography.
His extensive and poignant project Phuomi in South-East Asia focuses on the floating villages of Kompong Loung and Chong Kneas on the Tonle Sap Lake. In this set of photographs, the villages and their inhabitants are documented going about their daily lives, fishing, cooking, and socialising. To the uninitiated observer, these normal routines appear surreal and exotic, and are captivating to watch.
His second exhibition Fanø, was shot in one week on the Danish island of the same name. Occupied by the Third Reich in 1940, The Island is now home to upwards of three hundred Nazi bunkers, all of which never saw any conflict. These now-desolate concrete shells have been bricked up and broken into over the 70 years since the occupation. Thompson and his two assistants spent the week crawling through minute gaps and investigating the pitch-black spaces, often only seeing the whole space for the split second when the camera’s flash was fired. Graffiti, bedding, and animal sacrifices are just some of the things found inside.
This most recent project, The Decline of Conscience is something a little closer to home, shot over three years in and around the Heygate Estate in Elephant And Castle. This new body of work shows the negative effects of gentrification, and the adverse effects it can have on the underprivileged members of society.
Nick is a photographer with a strong sense of social conscience, and his work is always both beautifully alluring and ethically charged. This duality is what balances his work perfectly in-between honest documentary photography and fine art.
