America’s Game
35mm & 120mm Photography project
Why this project?
My dad was influenced by that first wave of globalisation in the UK. The mid-80s. Channel 4. Late nights. The Chicago Bears coming over to Wembley. William Perry. That team had an impact on the generation above. He introduced me to the game when I was a young teenager. Super Bowl XXXVII. Raiders vs Buccaneers. I shouldn’t have been up, but I was. That was enough. I bought Madden the next day.
I grew up immersed in American culture through basketball. That was constant. But over time, American football became the one. For the last twenty five years, Sundays have been set. It’s the game I’ve stayed closest to. At Loughborough University, I leaned into the sociology of sport. My dissertation focused on the globalisation of the NFL and its growth in the UK. So this feels full circle. Using the tool I express myself with now to document the sport’s growth.
It’s a way of looking at how the game exists beyond where it started. How it’s been taken on by different places, different people, and turned into something of their own. Not the NFL as a product. The game as culture. I see this as a body of work I’ll return to over time. A book. Exhibitions. Limited prints.
