‘Waterways’ is a photographic enquiry into the generative act of walking as means of investigating the architecture and landscape of Britain’s industrial past in relation to its post industrial present. Underpinning the project are economic and cultural developments that signal a move from an industrialized, manufacturing based economy to an information and leisure based, post-industrial economy.
The project explores walking routes along the South Pennine Ring, which intersect the counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire. The interconnecting canals that constitute the network were originally intended as trade routes since their inception in the 18th Century, but have since developed into hybrid spaces, a combination of quasi-heritage cites, symbols for an industrial past and vacant ‘non-places’ [Auge,1995].
In Waterways, photography is a tool for rethinking, reframing and re-presenting landscape in regards its relationship with time and history. By re-evaluating these once vital trade routes in relation to the present post-industrial canal side environments, insights into the complex mix of the pastoral, industrial sites, utilitarian domestic architecture and the tourist path reveal a rich and sometimes contradictory picture of the British industrial north.
References:
Auge, M. (1995) Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London, Verso.