David Spero: Settlements

About

Displayed as part of Elsewhere(s), a series of exhibitions and site-specific installations curated by students on the MA Curation course at University of Exeter, David Spero's photographic series Settlements offers a quietly powerful glimpse into alternative ways of living, documenting off-grid communities across the UK. These communities, including Steward Community Woodland on the edge of Dartmoor and Tinkers Bubble in rural Somerset, embody a radical rethinking of sustainability; not as a slogan, but as lived practice. Taken between 2004 and 2015, the photographs document the communities' development and transformation, captured through images of their homes, infrastructure and community life.

Through Spero's lens, we are invited into a visionary world where dwellings are hand-built from recycled materials and where fruit and vegetables are grown a few steps from the kitchen table. In a time defined by mass-consumer culture, increasing technological dependence, and environmental uncertainty, Settlements invites us to reflect on what sustainable living truly means and what changes we might embrace to move closer to it.