The House of Vernacular – curated by Martin Parr

The House of Vernacular is a central component of Brighton Photo Biennial 2010, curated by Martin Parr.

Housed within an imaginary and dreamlike architecture seven diverse collections of vernacular photography from around the world are intimately located. The collections appear like the deposits of a strange museum or quirky department store, theatrically set and held in delicate balance between a sense of familiar recognition and uneasy displacement. Each collection goes some way to describe a slip between fantasy and reality – through innocence, humour, grandiose design, propaganda or everyday failure the images join to form a narrative route through these twin realms of consciousness.

Martin Parr’s vision for The House of Vernacular is to present a celebration of the ‘everyday’ that is politically pertinent, fun and stimulating for a broad audience. It focusses on issues related to the use of public space and the politics of design, photography as a democratic form, local distinctiveness and micro-business culture.