Twenty-seven years after it first stunned audiences, Martin Parr's Common Sense — one of the late photographer's most ambitious and influential projects — goes back on display this month at the Bristol Photo Festival.

The reprisal gives a new generation the chance to confront a body of work that helped define Parr's savage, saturated vision of consumer culture. Parr, who died recently, built his reputation on images that find the absurd and the tender in everyday excess, and Common Sense stands among the series that secured that reputation.

What do the pictures look like?

The exhibition's signature image tells you almost everything you need to know about the project's register. A hand with blue glittery nail polish grips a burger wrapped in purple Mickey Mouse paper mid-bite. The frame is garish, close, and unapologetic — junk food and glitter nail polish compressed into a single gesture of consumption.

That picture encapsulates the series' method: hyper-saturated color, aggressive proximity, and subjects caught in the act of eating, buying, sunbathing, and dressing. Parr turns the ordinary rituals of leisure into something both comic and faintly monstrous.

Why does 'Common Sense' still matter?

First shown 27 years ago, the series arrived at a moment when color documentary photography was still fighting for full institutional acceptance. Parr's garish palette and macro-tinged detail pushed the documentary tradition toward something closer to visual satire, and the work influenced a generation of photographers who followed.

Bristol is a fitting venue. The city has served as a hub of British photography culture, and the Bristol Photo Festival has positioned itself as a platform for ambitious, historically significant bodies of work rather than ephemeral trends.

The festival's decision to stage Common Sense now — after Parr's death — also reframes the series. What once read as teasing observation of late-20th-century consumerism now stands as a document of a particular era of abundance, photographed by one of Britain's most distinctive eyes.

A closing look

For viewers who missed the series the first time around, this month's presentation offers a rare opportunity. For those who saw it, the return of Common Sense 27 years on invites a reassessment: how much has the world Parr photographed changed, and how much have we simply become better at not noticing it?

The exhibition opens at the Bristol Photo Festival this month.