Hamilton MAS Presents… Shelter – Postcards from Felixstowe 

An exhibition of image and text by Libi Pedder

15-25 April, 11am-4pm at Hamilton MAS, Bent Hill, Felixstowe IP11 7DG – Private View, 16 April, 6-8pm

Libi Pedder is a commercial and fine art photographer. After graduating, Libi spent some time assisting fashion and advertising photographers in central London, before taking up the position of production manager at The Independent newspaper. The title gained a reputation for its seminal and progressive use of photography during her seven years in post.

After leaving The Independent, she established her own successful photographic business, shooting extensively within editorial, adverting, publishing and design.

Clients have included The Sunday Times Magazine, Condé Nast, Grazia, Marie Claire, Disney, Channel 4, Sky, Hodder and The London Stock Exchange.

In addition to her commercial work, Libi has always committed time to developing personal projects. She is interested in the often-overlooked beauty of the everyday, turning her attention to the underappreciated objects and spaces that surround us. Through her images she invites the viewer to pause, think again and enjoy an altered perception.

Libi brought this vision to her latest project Postcards from Felixstowe, while finding herself temporarily living in a new location, away from her native Surrey. Feeling adrift, and missing friends and familiar things, she began shooting in and around the town, dedicating each image to a friend or relative as a ‘postcard,’ creating a meaningful connection with the place, while sharing those discoveries with the established people in her life.

The result is a comprehensive tour of Felixstowe through the eyes and lens of this temporary yet fully connected resident.

Libi says: “I became a new resident of Felixstowe during the Spring of 2021, I already knew the town but as weekender having often visited my partner’s family here. Now finding myself an inhabitant was a very different proposition.

“I had a lot of affection for the town, coming here as a guest always promised a restful, happy few days, indulging in holiday treats and spending valued time with family. Yet having left friends and family back in my native Surrey, I felt displaced and homesick, missing people and so many of the familiar and established routines of my day-to-day life. 

“Our plan had been to spend some months in Felixstowe while organising our living situation back home in Surrey, a logical and pragmatic solution to the particular situation we found ourselves in but I hadn’t anticipated the emotional cost of the upheaval and soon found myself somewhat cast adrift.

“I was writing to my friends and family regularly, trying to impart my sense of loss and estrangement, along with the newness and discoveries I was experiencing while living here. I wanted to show them what I was seeing and feeling, so what more effective way for me to do this than by using my own medium of photography.

“As an outsider turned insider I had the advantage of a certain, unique perspective. Finding the town a refreshingly diverse, sometimes unlikely mix of places co-existing. I was drawn to the sea, the land and the huge, endlessly triumphant skies.

“My images soon suggested themselves as post cards which also seemed the perfect size to send out with my correspondence. Some were delivered electronically, others posted in envelopes. The resulting body of work is a narrative of my time in Felixstowe.

“There is a modesty and a quiet serenity that I’ve found here in the land and seascapes but more than that, they contain a stark beauty that will remain with me.

“I’m grateful to you Felixstowe, please accept my pictorial tribute. I admire your singularity and while my time here has been a mixed experience, I thank you for your amity, your welcoming disposition and your extraordinary skies.”

To find out more about Libi and her work, visit www.libipedder.com