See Monster, Weston-super-Mare

In 2022, Weston-super-Mare’s Tropicana hosted an unprecedented feat of engineering and art: See Monster. A decommissioned North Sea offshore platform was brought to the coast and reimagined as a towering public art installation.

A massive celebration of British creativity, weather, and sustainable reuse.

Drawn to the intersection of industrial scale and human endeavour, I set out to document the installation’s journey. This project steps away from standard architectural photography to focus purely on the candid reality of the site. It chronicles the gritty, intricate process of the build, featuring intimate portraits of the construction workers who wrestled the steel giant into place. As the site transitioned from a hardhat zone to a public attraction, the lens shifted toward the community, capturing the authentic, unscripted awe of the people exploring it. Ultimately, this collection isn’t just about the sheer scale of an oil rig; it’s a visual record of the hands that built it and the faces that looked up at it.

The ambitious vision behind this transformation was spearheaded by New Substance, a creative studio renowned for their groundbreaking, large-scale structural artworks. Their daring concept not only repurposed hundreds of tonnes of industrial architecture into a breathtaking public space, but it also provided a uniquely challenging canvas for this series. Documenting their work meant capturing the raw intersection of visionary design and the gritty, physical reality of bringing it to life.