ROADS TO WIGAN PIER
2012-10-01Taking as their starting point George Orwell’s seminal 1937 publication The Road to Wigan Pier, a sociological investigation into the bleak living conditions of the working class in Yorkshire and Lancashire, six newly graduated students of photography were commissioned by Impressions to record and document social aspects of the North of England. Each worked independently and each took a personal viewpoint.
These non-judgemental, yet sometimes shocking, photographs show us a way of life that was in terminal decline. This picture of Orwellian dystopia acts as an elegy of the northern urban landscape and its people, on the brink of irrevocable social and cultural change. Today, in-post industrial Britain, we are perhaps inclined to forget the recent past as many of the symbols of poverty and neglect have been replaced by regeneration.
Exhibition runs through till January 5th, 2012
Impressions Gallery
Centenary Square
Bradford
BD1 1SD
