These images were made in Sheffield between 1988-90, The Lower Don Valley was at that time an immense abandoned area of industrial history. The valley was mapped for change and ‘regeneration’ with retail and new sports facilities to house the World Student Games, but the lower Don Valley had been used for heavy industry for hundreds of years, and was renowned as the city producing steel and cutlery.
It’s difficult to describe the sheer size of the regeneration development and how much the industry had previously shaped the landscape. Everywhere had been altered in some way by the production of steel and heavy industry.
Documenting the change and the abandonment of place and purpose during an era of re-structure of landscape and industrial waste. it is the presence and traces that people bestow on the places they inhabit that I am drawn to. The cycle of destruction and re-use that drives the human condition.
The images were made with a view to considering where we live and how we relate to our environment.
Book sale here
Book sale here
