Resort 2: Butlin's Bognor Regis
Fox, Anna (2015) Resort 2: Butlin's Bognor Regis. [Book art/Artist's book, Exhibition/show, Photography]
For two years British photographer Anna Fox documented holiday culture at the iconic Butlin's resort in the seaside town of Bognor Regis, West Sussex. This new book 'Resort 2' is the second part of the Resort project. 'Resort 1' looked at family breaks at this iconic holiday camp, providing a unique insight into contemporary British leisure culture. 'Resort 2' observes a very different kind of holiday, the themed adult breaks, taking place about once every six weeks inside this very British holiday camp. Butlin's, famed for its family holidays since its creation in the mid-1930s, needed to rework its branding from the 1970s onwards. Cheap package holidays started to draw families away from this popular resort and several of the camps closed down. Having attracted tens of millions of holidaymakers since its creation in 1936, the popularity of Butlin's was at stake and after the rebranding of the family breaks came a new invention the adult-only themed weekends. Steeped in a carnival atmosphere these raucous weekends bring out a range of fantastic characters from groups of imitation pop icons such as Amy Winehouse and Elvis to gangs of male fairies and angels. With various titles such as 'Back to the 60s' or '90s Re-loaded' and the marvellous 'Hot Summer Party', these weekends attract thousands of work-worn adults ready to try out exotic fancy dress and party. The book includes an essay by David Chandler.
Resort 1 and Resort 2 reviewed by Photomonitor:
http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2016/01/resort-1-resort-2
Resort 2 featured in Perdiz Magazine:
http://www.perdizmagazine.com/en/butlins
Reviewed in Shanghai Daily, 4 December 2017: https://www.shine.cn/archive/city-specials/hangzhou/Exhibition-capturing-a-bygone-era-of-postcard-Britain/shdaily.shtml
The book Resort 2 is held in the libraries at UCA Farnham and UCA Rochester.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7728-4660
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