What British Families Really Look Like In 2017

We Are Family, a photography exhibition about modern families in the UK, opens at the National Portrait Gallery this week. Writer/producer Tom Seymour and photographer Sian Davey visited Devon, London, Yorkshire and Scotland’s Hebrides to take pictures of families being families, confirming in quiet moments that there's no such thing as 'normal' and, in fact, that 'normal' is the antithesis of British culture.

"As we travelled the country together, our gendered ideas of motherhood, fatherhood and teenagehood were challenged by the realities we met," Tom told Refinery29. "This exhibition is a study of family life – how we form a family, how we rely on one, the responsibilities and sacrifices they entail, and the unique, integral things they provide."

A heartwarming documentation of family life today, the exhibition introduces us to single mother Denise, raising her four children as a “unit of individuals” in Birmingham; to co-parenting father Tom, bringing up his two children in Devon; and to a Scottish couple who have "known of each other since they were children, and now have two of their own."

Click through to see a selection of images, and read Tom's captions detailing who's who, and how they relate to each other.

We Are Family, sponsored by McCain, opens at the National Portrait Gallery on 21st September.