Ewen Spencer: While you Were Sleeping 1998 - 2000

About the Author

Ewen Spencer graduated from the University of Brighton in1997 and began shooting for visually driven style magazines, such as Sleazenation and The Face, with an emphasis on youth culture.

In 2000 he embarked upon a series of projects for The Face magazine documenting British adolescents as they were coming to terms with socializing, dating and sex at the beginning of the new century. What separates him from other social documentarians is a sense that he knows and likes his subjects, that they trust him enough to allow him entry into their world. The series developed into a personal project for Ewen and extended into the following year on a self motivated basis.

In 2004 Teenagers was shortlisted for the Project Assistance award at Rencontres D'Arles curated that year by Martin Parr who tipped Ewen as 'one to watch'. The work was shown as part of the main festival alongside other nominees. His proposal to the judges at Arles that year was to create a body of work that would eventually be released as the book Open Mic. The work took 3 years to complete, exploring the burgeoning Grime music scene, which was based predominantly in East London. 'Open Mic' went on to collect a D&AD graphite award in the photography category for 2006.

Ewen has continued his interest in youth culture. In 2013 he began self-publishing a biannual photo-zine called Guapamente focusing on global youth subcultures visiting Naples, Marseille, Miami and London. 2013 also saw the publication by GOST of UKG. The project focused on the early days of the UK Garage music scene from 1998-2000. As Ewen has since observed; "Garage had all the attributions to any worthwhile UK subculture, clean living under difficult circumstances. Dressing up and living for the weekend." UK Garage was exclusive at the time. Today it raises questions concerning style, music and an age when a multicultural, working class youth pre-dated social media. Mobile phones were a novelty but access to designer labels, expensive drinks and flights to Ayia Napa were on the menu.

Following the publication of UKG, Dazed and Confused approached Ewen to direct a short documentary film exploring the UK Garage scene. The 8 minute short was picked up by Channel 4. Ewen was asked to turn the film into a 23 minute documentary for national television broadcast in March 2014, followed by a documentary about Grime, based on his Open Mic book, broadcast November 2014.

After the success of these two short films Channel Four & i-D magazine commissioned Ewen to write, direct and narrate a four part documentary film series called "Street, Sound and Style" Broadcast in May 2015 the films chart the journey of youth style and music from 1980 through to today.

In 2016 Ewen was invited by the Brighton Photo Biennial to exhibit as a featured artist, alongside Fabrica Gallery in Brighton Ewen was commissioned to make a new body of work that became Kick Over the Statues. A series of images Film and soundtrack considering Youth Style and Subculture in the contemporary. The exhibition was so well received in the UK that its run at Fabrica Gallery was extended and the exhibition was invited to exhibit in London in 2017.

In 2017 Ewen's pictures of UK Teenagers were collected into a monograph called 'Young Love' published by Stanley Barker.

Since 2016 Ewen has made long form Photographic projects considering style and youth culture in collaboration with Arena HOMME+ magazine in London, Vogue Hommes in Paris and Interview and V Magazine in New York.

Ewens first documentary feature film commissioned by BBC film and BBC StoryVille is scheduled for cinematic premier in October 2021.