Ian Breakwell was a prolific artist who took a multi-media approach to his observations of society.

Many artists of this generation turned ‘social scientist’, documenting their lives or the lives of those around them using photography, recorded notes and journals.

Seeing his work as part of ‘Diary’, an exhibition I visited during my degree encouraged me to push forward my own Art Practice, exploring map making and documentation.

The Walking Man Diary records the repeated appearance of an unknown man walking a regular route around the Smithfield area in the City of London, where Breakwell was living at the time. Breakwell began to take photographs of the unknown man if he happened to be passing by. All the photographs are taken from the same third floor window vantage point: the view is the same but the time passes. Two adjoining photographs may be separated by seconds, or weeks, or months.

Mrs Munton