For some time I have been working with a unique group of people, meeting, photographing, talking, and seeking collaboration. Blackpool is unique, my home. As a photographer based in Blackpool, I am lucky to photograph many community happenings. Somehow landing a role as a civic photographer if there is such a thing. Collaborating with libraries, new museum projects, working in diverse settings: LBQT+ groups, community centers in social housing areas, day services that provide space for creative happenings for adults with learning disabilities, and creatives and creative organizations who “take the art to the people”.
Russ Brown Magician at Showtown Comedy Festival July 2023
Since the beginning of the year, I have been writing an Arts Council England Application to work alongside The Blackpool Centre for Learning. The group has an established group of Artists who I have documented previously, The pArtnership has already shown work at Manchester Contemporary Art Gallery and sold their work to galleries supported by The Grundy Art Gallery Blackpool and artist Tina Dempsey. While working with the artists I discovered their photography group, established for 9 years meeting regularly twice a week. The group described to me earlier in the year how Neil Froggett one of the day services managers had found a marble plaque at one of their sites dedicated to a mid-century civic architect #JCRobinson https://issuu.com/heritageblackpool/docs/blackpool_heritage_news_issue_15
Morag Myerscough Community Art Installation “We are Kinship” sat alongside one of CRobinson designs Highfield Library, Blackpool, July 2023.
What happened next was a flurry of conversation, inspiring a crossover of creative happenings and community threads in Blackpool. We began to think about how civic and community spaces are used in Blackpool. One of JC Robinson’s buildings and there are many including a plethora of libraries uncovering that Bispham Library is now used as a day service for The New Langdale Photographers and Blackpool Centre for Independent Living Service. With further connections to Carlton Crematorium and Layton Library both used by the services gardening and litter picking groups. In a town built for visitors, I began to think further about how the built environment is accessed by residents and the shared space that is so very Blackpool. We realised that many of the buildings that are mid-century in personality were John Charles Robinson designs past and present important spaces, holding special memories for many residents and potentially folks further afield: Derby Baths, South Shore Open Air Baths, Hawe Side Library, Highfield Library, and School, Marton Library, decorative public transport shelters in Devonshire Square and Bispham, The Citadel in Blackpool, the miles of Colanades on Blackpool seafront, North Shore Lift site, Harrowside Bridge, The Solaris Centre, part of Blackpool Zoo, Squires Gate Bridge and Station, Stanley Buildings in Blackpool, Blackpool Cricket and Golf Club Pavilions, Stanley Park Cafe, St Johns Market, Derby Baths, Collegiate Girls School, Palatine Technical College, and Marton Library.
Image: Sam Bragg. Blackpool Cricket Club June 2023
In July 2023 we were awarded Arts Council funding to explore the project with confirmed partners from Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool to The Magic Club Youth Club in North Shore. We want to be able to share experiences through photography, attract participants and collaborators through social stories, and explore the positive power of diversity in Blackpool to bring the community together. Although established for nine years, The New Langdale photographers’ approach for photographing buildings, and creating audio and video to capture community stories is fairly new. How can we learn from each other about diversity and new stories? Using JC Robinson buildings as a catalyst?
Image: Dawn Ward. Stanley Buildings Blackpool. July 2023
Surely creativity is a human condition an alternative language. Somewhere along the way many of us are told that we are not doing it right. I hear so many people say they cannot draw. Everyone can draw or perhaps you garden or can bake an awesome cake. Creativity is escapism, a way to give your brain a vacation. Do you know those feelings of “switching off” as you concentrate on completing the jigsaw, chopping that carrot, or watering the garden? I hope through the project we can challenge who has access to creativity and an opportunity to create new stories - after all isn’t creativity for everyone and sharing stories, experiences, and space creates new happenings and creative physical interactions in a time when perhaps the world seems to be shrinking because of social media versus how we see and experience things in real time.
Image: Tony Holmes. Stanley Park Cafe June 2023
Socially engaged creativity has gone wild, but really we perhaps have gone full circle. Community art seems an exciting prospect for me. As a working-class girl from a single-parent family, being perhaps “okay” at art was my escape as a young person. Intrigued by the family photo albums and who was who, the stories attached to them. What is the back story? In galleries the biographies of what makes up the artist’s work and their journey intrigues me, the photography projects where the audience is as much as a part of the work as the outcome. Where else can we explore art? I love the gallery but it is not for everyone. Perhaps that is why graffiti is so popular, made by the people for the people, on the streets, unrestricted. I photographed two projects this year that not only involved the community but also acted as a performance for new audiences including the community to make an experience that somewhere along the way will become a story retold to future generations. Someone once told me cinema was the most popular cultural activity, surely therefore performance must follow closely behind perhaps?
What I get from photography is quite often a “mindful” experience, an escape, somewhere to feel safe, like the cinema or reading a good book, I am cocooned. Through August 2023 a performative space popped up in Blackpool. It crossed over and formed a connection with The New Langdale photographers. We had been invited earlier in the year alongside photographer Donna Hannigan to capture doors with the group. That the doors might act as “source” material for a future art installation by Morag Myerscough, perhaps the doors were a metaphor for possibilities signifying new openings or closing the door on unsatisfying pasts. We photographed Bond Street in South Blackpool and Central Drive in Blackpool.
Image: Bradley Bulmer - Central Drive Blackpool March 2023
Central Drive is currently earmarked for regeneration and Bond Street has become somewhat unloved over the years and is just one street away from the popular Pleasure Beach tourist attraction.
Image: Claire Griffiths. Central Drive Library Blackpool.
In the following weeks, we attended Morag's workshop where she brought some of our images to collage with brightly coloured stickers and cards. Imagining new doorways for Blackpool. We felt very proud as a collective that some of our images formed ideas for the final structures which with further help from communities in Blackpool such as FYWingz, Highfield Hub, The Magic Club, and Revoelution used New Langdale Photographers’ images to inspire conversation and develop further ideas used to design the installation which toured a number of areas in Blackpool. The structure was then programmed by the community including Gong baths, Yoga, poetry, and a poem written by Nathan Parker dedicated to the creative happenings. Do creative happenings inspire other creative happenings?
Image: Claire Griffiths. Morag Myerschough “We are Kinship” at Claremont Park, Blackpool. August 2023
It is by coincidence that perhaps “We Are Kinship” a community art installation might prompt further about creativity and its relationship to audiences, how spaces impact our lives, and how built environments affect and inspire us by providing different views and experiences. Taking art to the people, attracting new audiences, “community taking centre stage”, to create their own creative movements and distancing themselves from historical notions of power and the artist as the key player. A collaboration, a shared experience, feeling part of something.
Image: Claire Griffiths. Lancashire Photography Parade, Preston. Courtesy of Garry Cook and Enjoy The Show.
In early August I was commissioned by photographer Garry Cook of Enjoy The Show to document some of his Arts Council England-developed Photography Festival which features a number of outdoor displays from the photography world key players Martin Parr, Jenny Lewis, Ian Beesley, Dougie Wallace, Maryam Wahid, Serena Dzenis, Bobby Beesley, Tessa Bunney, and Sarah Maple. Taking esteemed photography work to a variety of parks, green spaces, high streets, and public spaces. Gary’s work included callouts to community photographers to show their work in open calls including “Hit Singles” and a photography parade. I think I might have toyed with the idea of a parade with The New Langdale Photographers on an earlier project
Bostonway and New Langdale Photographers but somehow I think I have been inspired by Garry and his approach previously, so he might have mentioned this idea to me. I once saw Garry present a film where music was played alongside his images of which he presented like Bob Dylan in Subterranean Homesick Blues. Garry’s interest in theatre programming performance alongside his photography which often tours night and entertainment venues. He once helped me make a stop motion where I displayed images in shop windows to attract new audiences around the #retiredperformers project and we talked about the changing landscape of galleries, audiences, and photography.
Image: Claire Griffiths. Garry Cook - Preston Photography Parade, Lancashire Photography Festival August 2023
The Parade: What I thought was that I was being booked for was a restful walk through Preston Town Centre photographing a sedentary showing of photography work. What I experienced was a powerful “taking art to the people”, part performance, part exhibition. It was received in a variety of ways by the general public. Some folks seemed fearful after all they thought their wrestling match was being hijacked. Others laughed and asked questions - exclaiming back to us “brilliant”.
image: Claire Griffiths. Preston Photography Parade/ Enjoy The Show at Flag Market Preston.
Members of the parade began to make it a performance, jumping in a wrestling ring that was set up in Preston Flag Market and engaging the host to let the unsuspecting audience know what was happening, sitting with coffee shop attendees, and staging shots alongside the general public. It felt like a real “masterclass” in community creativity and was held on #worldphotographyday as the first photography parade of its kind. Creativity feeds and inspires other creative acts - does photography itself act as a form of performance? A photograph of a photograph, a performance as a photograph, a photograph of a performance.
Image: Claire Griffiths. Preston Photography Parade. August 2023. Courtesy: Garry Cook/ Enjoy The Show.
This week we took to BBC Lancashire to talk about JC Robinson and The New Langdale Photography project BBC Radio Lancashire Interview The presenter Nish confirmed how important sharing stories and our relationship to civic and historic buildings is. We look forward to visiting all the spaces and sharing our project and its story as far and wide as possible, creating new relationships, and strengthening the power of community through shared creative acts and the accessible medium of photography. We want the project to be shaped by the community and especially by The New Langdale Photographers our outcomes are yet to be founded. Follow The New Langdale Photography Project on Our Facebook Page and our Instagram. Email us at: jcrobinsonphoto@gmail.com to share stories, personal images, or more information about JC Robinson - we would love to hear from you. Look out for our forthcoming photo walks and “pop-up” exhibitions.
Photography practitioners and support for the project are: Elizabeth Gomm, Donna Hannigan, and myself: Claire Griffiths
New Langdale Photography Call Out New Langdale Photographers Website