Art of darkness

The East Anglians; Subversive Spaces: Surrealism and Contemporary Art
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, until 13 December

Most exhibitions of photographs could be viewed just as satisfactorily from an armchair with a book of high-quality reproductions, but not The East Anglians. There are 58 colour photographs in this show, and they need to be seen in situ, partly because of their scale (some are very large), and partly because of their darkness, which would not transfer well to the printed page. The darkness is not helped by the slightly overweening black frames, which add a funereal air to the proceedings, but perhaps this is not inappropriate in a body of work that chronicles the decline of a way of life. These intensely atmospheric images tell a story of dwindling communities and disappearing livelihoods, of loss of that intimate connection between man and the soil that is the cause of so many of our problems today. No reason here for celebration.

Between 1950 and 2000, the number of people working in agriculture in East Anglia fell by nearly two thirds, as small farms failed to compete with agribusiness. Justin Partyka (born Norfolk 1972) has spent the past eight years exploring the vestiges of a once-thriving agrarian culture, searching out the forgotten droves and tracks, the derelict farms, and the remaining individuals who eke a precarious living from the land. He trained as a folklorist in Newfoundland, and has brought to his self-appointed task the method of the researcher. These are not arty photos, though there is art in their composition. They are not simple documentation either, for Partyka deliberately patrols the dividing line between sentimentality and formal rigour. In the restricted light of the grey hangar that is the Sainsbury Centre, his photographs glow sombrely.

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