UPENDED: photography by Matthew Hyndman

Matthew Hyndman removes his clothes and stands on his head in some of Scotland’s most spectacular landscapes. The resulting photographs have an obvious appeal: a naked man, upside down and alone in a vast landscape has an idiosyncratic charm that is oddly humorous and perhaps profound. We are numb to these epic vistas from their over-use in tourism campaigns and across social media. Put a bottom in the frame and we see the view anew all over again. Beyond Matthew and because of him, the landscape feels arresting in its majesty and magnitude. We marvel at the technical feat. We wonder about midges and passers-by. For Matthew, his headstands are more than a dare or an attempt to garner influencer status – on the contrary, his nudity means he is all but black-listed from social media. Matthew formerly belonged to a devout religious community. In his early twenties he was on board a mission ship in South East Asia when he accidentally sent his WhatsApp conversation history with a man he had met online to his entire congregation back home. He left the boat and his church. His life as he had known it was upended.

Today, he lives in Edinburgh with the man who met him off the boat. He co-founded the Ban Conversion Therapy group, raising awareness and lobbying the government against insidious practices that still exist to bully people into believing that homosexuality is a convertible lifestyle choice. “Scotland has become a sanctuary for me,” Matthew explains. “My headstands are acts of defiance and liberation. I’m shedding more than my clothes and inhibitions; I like to think I’m also shedding an institutionalised version of myself at the same time. I’m baring everything.” Matthew describes standing naked, facing landscapes of such monumentality as an enlivening experience: “It’s humbling and exposing but also empowering”.

View the prints

UPENDED is on show at Bard in Leith from Friday 9th August until Sunday 27th October 2024.

Open 11-5pm, Friday to Sunday and otherwise by appointment.