My work explores the dynamic relationship between image and text, experimenting with historical and contemporary photographic processes, writing and making books, which are published by my imprint Negative Press London, established 2012.
I am drawn to the complexities and layered nature of modern life, responding to social issues and past and present events through a personal lens.
Recent projects address climate collapse and the violent relationship of humans towards the natural world and to ourselves.
• Plastic Particles In My Testicles (Negative Press London, 2025) confronts the unsettling reality of microplastics pollution inside human bodies in a photography zine illustrated with plastic analogue positive film photography.
• Magnificent Bodies (Negative Press London, 2024). A box set of photographs of dead insects hand-printed at an enormous scale highlights the demise of flying insect numbers in the UK while showing the magnificent beauty of individual insects.
• Eighteen Years Old (Negative Press London, 2024). In a tabloid newspaper of photographs of broken trees and writing without punctuation, I recall the evening a gang of queer bashers set out to attack me.
Some Queer Animals (Negative Press London, 2023) – Shortlist 2024 Author Book Award, Arles Les Rencontres de la Photographie, France. Shortlist EI2024 Photobook Award, Braga, Portugal. Finalist Photobooks Photofrome 2025, Frome, UK
The Spots That Never Went (Negative Press London, 2018) – Highly Commended Finalist of the 2019 Cornish Family Prize for Art and Design Publishing, presented by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Books from Negative Press London (www.neg-press.com) are in international collections including Museum of Modern Art Library, New York, US; Wellcome Foundation Library, London, UK; National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; Artists’ Book Collection, Bavarian State Library, Munich, Germany; Bibliothèque Musée Français de la Photographie, Bièvres, France; Artist Book Collection, Bower Ashton Library, University of West England, UK; National Poetry Library, London, UK.
Exhibitions include Photofusion, London; Bruce Castle Museum, London; La Mécanique Génerale, Arles, France; Winchester Gallery, Winchester; Bower Ashton Library, Bristol; Foyles Gallery, London; Dutch Centre, London; Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge; Bury Art Museum, Bury; and Marginal Arts Festival, Roanoke, Virginia, US.
My writing appears in short fiction anthologies, journals and academic publications.
I live in Hastings, UK. Graduating in 2019 from Cambridge School of Art, my MA Fine Art show was awarded the Cambridge Artspace Residency.
roelofbakker(@)mac.com
@roelof_bakker
www.neg-press.com
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