The People’s River Project - with local residents and No. 93 Wellness Centre, North Manchester
The People’s River project was a community-led programme, where I worked with people who live and work along the River Irk in Manchester. It was inspired by Friedrich Engels writings of the River Irk in his seminal text ‘The Conditions of the Working Class in England’. Commissioned by Manchester Histories, the project aimed to reveal and creatively share the often hidden histories and stories of people’s own local heritage.
As part of the commission I had the pleasure of working with individuals from the 93 wellness centre in Harpurhey, North Manchester. We walked, talked and took photographs together to explore the local area, its heritage and share stories about the hidden histories of the Irk Valley.
The group then explored the process of turning their photographs and foraged items from the walk into cyanotype prints. These images went on to form the contents of the physical exhibition in Queens Park and within the centre itself, as well as some old donated images from local resident Margaret. We used the cyanotype process as a reminder of both the surrounding nature and the local industrial history which has shaped the landscape of the Irk Valley from Engel’s period to today.
The exhibition was accompanied by a poem ‘By the River Side’, by of one of the participant’s family members and gifted to the project.
Thank you to workshop assistant Immy Llewelyn for her documentation of some of the sessions and to events photographer Jonathan Keenan for some of the exhibition installation shots featured on the website.