Benefit for Ukraine. Antwerp, Belgium. Blikfabriek, 2023

Riot Police. Borgerhout. Antwerp, Belgium. De Morgen. 2022

Virologist Marc Van Ranst. Leuven, Belgium. De Morgen. 2022

Schengen, Luxembourg. 2017

Tilde. Antwerp Central Station. Belgium. 2016

Tilde had heard my attempts at conversation fall on deaf ears and announced from further along the carriage that she enjoyed speaking English and wouldn’t mind having her picture taken. We were on a train in Antwerp Central Station in the summer of 2016. We would travel as far as Luxembourg together and I would hear of her family and its history of war-time flight and survival and of the schism that had caused her so much grief over the years which would finally be resolved in the days following our first meeting.

My plan was to take a cruise on the Moselle but the Princesse Marie Astrid turned out not to be the boat that I had hoped. That one had long since left Schengen they told me and was in Germany now, in Regensburg, working the Danube under a new name. The Princesse Marie Astrid on which the Schengen Agreement was signed was now the MS Regensburg making pleasure trips to The Walhalla Memorial, a neo-classical hall modelled on the Parthenon that stands high above the river filled with busts of significant Germans.

As I was leaving Schengen that day I saw a car by the side of the road which was covered, almost entirely, with a hand painted picture of a Viking ship sailing past the Valhalla of Norse mythology. It had Russian plates but as far as I can gather it was all purely coincidental.

Konrad Adenauer House. Near Bonn, Germany. 2018

Michael Thomas Jones uses the railways as both method and metaphor whilst exploring what is left of European ‘togetherness’ in the age of protectionism, nationalism and fear of the foreign. Since 1994 the UK has been connected to the continent via the Channel Tunnel yet never the less they are the first to repeal the EU. The European ideal of solidarity has been under pressure ever since. Bert Dankaert. Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp.

The McCauley Family. Voting No. Kingussie, Scotland The A9 Project. On Scottish Independence. The Guardian. 2014

The McCauley Family. Voting No. Kingussie, Scotland
The A9 Project. On Scottish Independence. The Guardian. 2014

In 1981 and 1982, photographer Paul Graham travelled up and down the A1, the longest road in the UK, documenting his journey through the heart of Britain with the series A1, The Great North Road. London-based photographer Michael Thomas Jones takes his cues from Graham with The A9 Project, which sees him traverse the longest motorway in Scotland to document how people intend to vote in today's referendum on independence. In a nod to Graham's work, Jones has also installed his images at the London crossroads where the A1 finally meets the A9 – you can see them at the junction between Upper Street and Goswell Road. Despite counting himself as a yes voter, Jones says that A9 doesn't throw its lot in with either political camp. As Britain waits to see how Scotland votes, Jones displays a nation of Scots poised to make one of the biggest decisions in its history. Dazed and Confused

Elaine Bruce. Voting Yes. Newtonmore, Scotland
The A9 Project. On Scottish Independence. The Guardian. 2014

La Pedrera. Barcelona, Spain. 2010

‘Modernista is an exhibition that seeks to contextualise the late 19th century buildings of Gaudi and his fellow ‘modernista’ architects as being more than just bricks and mortar. Gaudi’s work, in particular, has been the subject of extensive photographic surveys in the past but almost all have sought to emphasise the defined architectural merit of his work. By contrast, Michael Thomas Jones has viewed some of Barcelona’s most significant architectural works in terms of ‘people and place’, looking beyond the well-established ‘coffee-table monographs’ and ‘picture postcard views’. He has engaged some of the unsung individuals who work or live within these architectural landmarks. Additionally, he has captured the way in which many of these building’s now sit somewhat incongruously with their near neighbours, as the city has grown and developed; whilst others have been adapted and modified to meet the changing landscape of the city and the needs of society today.’ Peter Trowles, Glasgow school of Art.

A wedding at the Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor. Barcelona, Spain 2009. 40x30 inch framed print. Part of the collection of ‘Modernista’ exhibition prints destroyed in the ‘first fire’ at The Glasgow School of Art in 2014.

Municipal Worker at Parc Guell. Barcelona, Spain 2009. 40x30 inch framed print. Part of the collection of ‘Modernista’ exhibition prints destroyed in the ‘first fire’ at The Glasgow School of Art in 2014.