Festival co-curator Paul Quigley on the industrial experience and legacy of the area, explored through their post-war photography exhibition at Wolverhampton’s Light House
Home to a million people, the Black Country is often seen as adjunct to its close neighbour Birmingham. But one characteristic which distinguishes the area from the second city on its doorstep is the sheer intensity of its industrial experience.
From a time before the industrial revolution, right up until the present day, the Black Country has been shaped by manufacturing, particularly its metalworking industries. Barely a family or neighbourhood in its hundred square miles has been left unaffected. Even today, no part of the English conurbations depends more on manufacturing for employment.
The effect of such a persistent industrial tradition on the local community, landscape, and culture is really immeasurable. But how can artists, writers, and photographers truly chronicle this experience? The Black Country Museums, supported by Arts Council England have risen to this challenge through their ‘Black Country Echoes’ festival and community engagement programme.
The Black Country of old has inspired some of greats – Dickens wrote about it and Turner painted it. But we were interested in the manufacturing traditions of more recent times – the industrial work of living memory. What was left of the sprawling vehicle and aircraft works, the steel and iron industries of the post-war industrial boom for example? These, together with leather, textiles, and glass works provided thousands with work – including new roles for women and people arriving from the ‘New Commonwealth’. We also wanted to say something about the streets that provided homes for generations of factory workers: the communities that are continually remodelled but still reflect their earlier industrial origins.
Throughout the festival and wider project we have been privileged to use five great collections of images which, between them, tell the story of the Black Country in the period from the 1950s to the 21st century. They include the work of three individual photographers – Nick Hedges, John Bulmer and Peter Donnelly, as well as the archive of community arts organisation Jubilee Arts. The fifth collection is that of painter Arthur Lockwood, almost unique among British watercolourists in his interest in capturing industrial subjects.
Some of these photographers and artists were inspired by the change they could see in their own lifetimes – the disappearance of familiar industrial skylines in the huge transformations which took place in the 1970s and 80s for example. Others were accidental historians – they set out to record modern daily life in the area, in and out of work. In the disappearance of large parts of the industrial Black Country in the late 20th century they weren’t to realise how quickly modern daily life would become social history.
Black Country Echoes Festival runs until 31st December 2014 and can be seen in 27 exhibitions and 87 events in arts, cultural and community venues across the Black Country. Black Country Echoes in Pictures runs until 31 October at the Light House. Click for more info about the festival
