Britain uncovered

LOCATION: London, Newhaven, wherever this man takes his phone.

WORDS: Gareth E. Rees

Martin Fuller is a fisherman who also makes films about his meandering walks and bike rides through East London’s hinterlands – from the marshes and the Olympic Park down the Lea to the Thames, then sometimes out to sea.

Rusted barges, bones, wrecks, skeletal towers and pylons are recurring subjects. The films are made on Fuller’s phone and characterised by woozy experimental music, long and lingering shots, occasional drunken confrontations and surreal juxtapositions. The effect is like dreaming a walk where you can’t feel your legs and you’re being taken to bits of London you’d never think to go, and something strange is happening to your brain.

Ask the man himself about his films and he might well tell you “they’re shit”, but they’re not. They’re a precious record of a changing landscape, and capture the feelings of euphoria, boredom and terror you experience while moving through the lesser-trammelled back passages of the urban landscape.

Plus, they’re really short – so have a watch!

The Greenway to Beckton

 Tellytubby Wasteland

Stuck

Beyond Canning Town

Millennium Mills

This is Hackney Wick

The Container King of Hackney Wick

Bones and Bottles

For more films by Martin Fuller, check out his Vimeo page.

Or follow him on Twitter here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gareth E. Rees is author of Marshland: Dreams & Nightmares on the Edge of London. His work appears in Mount London: Ascents In the Vertical City, Acquired for Development By: A Hackney Anthology, and the album A Dream Life of Hackney Marshes.