These images were made in Sheffield between 1988-90. The Lower Don Valley was at that time an immense abandoned area of industrial steelworks. The valley was mapped for change and ‘regeneration’ with retail and new sports facilities to house the World Student Games, 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. Basically everywhere you looked had been altered in some way by the production of steel and heavy industry.
These photographs document 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
The Sheffield Project:
Photographs of a Changing City
Photographs of a Changing City
A major new exhibition produced by Untitled Print Studio and curated by Matthew Conduit featuring work exhibited and commissioned by the Untitled Gallery in the 1980s that explores the regeneration of Sheffield in that turbulent decade. The Sheffield Project: Photographs of a Changing City features work by Mike Black, Matthew Conduit, Berris Conolly, John Darwell, John Davies, Anna Fox, Graham Gaunt, John Kippin, Kate Mellor, Ken Phillip, Tim Smith, Bill Stephenson, Iain Stewart, Patrick Sutherland and Adrian Wynn.
Publication
A book published by Untitled Print Studio is available featuring the whole exhibition. Comprising 114 pages, 90 colour and black and white plates, foreword and statements from all artists.