BRITAIN'S LEGACY

The Empire brought blood and tears and dispossession to millions of people, but it also brought roads and railways and education.

For good or ill, much of the world is as it is today because of the Empire. From the way it looks to the sports people play. From the religion they practice to the language they speak.

It has changed the very genetic makeup of Britain. If only we can look at it clear-eyed, it can tell us a lot about who we are. It’s a story that belongs to all of us.

We’ve been through pride, we’ve been through shame, nowadays we seem to mostly be in denial. But if we really want to understand who we are, it’s time we stopped pretending the empire was nothing to do with us.

Jeremy Paxman's 2012 BBC series Empire

Exploring the Legacy of Empire

As a child, tales of distant lands sparked my imagination. That fascination has grown into a project documenting some of the most remote and unusual places connected to Britain’s past — islands and territories whose existence today is tied, for better or worse, to the history of the British Empire.

These are places often at the edges of the world, with unique cultures and landscapes, shaped by stories of exploration, human endurance, and, in many cases, connected to slavery and colonial subjugation. Through photography, sound recordings and visual storytelling, I aim to capture how these places have persisted and evolved, and the remarkable human stories they continue to hold.

*All images on the site available as prints - quote ‘PRINTREF’ code under each image in an email to info@guymeachin.com