Eric Baudelaire

A graduate of political science, in 2000 Eric Baudelaire (b. 1973, Salt Lake City) worked for several years in photojournalism before broadening his field of investigation to include the ‘visual representation of political ideas’. Since 2009 Baudelaire has made a number of short films and feature films in which he examines the complex relationship between narrative, image and documentary. He also produces photographs, prints and installations and works in other media, handling his subjects in a variety of ways. Taking inspiration from the social sciences and using some of their methodological tools. He conducts oral history-style interviews, poses questions and initiates discussions through correspondence, exhibiting these raw documents to the public.

The ongoing work Where are you going? (2018–) belongs to a series of correspondence works that take the form of an exchange of letters and e-mails. Following the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, a decisive choice both for European history and for the UK itself, he sent a brief message to the 650 members of the House of Commons and to the 784 members of the House of Lords asking the incisive question: ‘You are leaving Europe. But where are you going?’ The fifty or so responses he has received so far, the content of which varies considerably depending on the political position on Brexit of the person writing, offers a snapshot of an historic moment for British parliamentarianism.