Heartlands

Heartlands is a photographic installation produced specifically for the exhibition Lost (2006) and developed further as into the four screen projection, Transitions, for the exhibition Re-Place (2008). It continues investigations into the nature of personal and national identities, but reflecting the title of the show, the focus is on the dynamics of disruption and dislocation as a force in the shaping of new identities. The work takes the form of a split-screen projection that explores the aftermath of what is often now cited as a key moment in post-war British history; the 1984 miners strike. The Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire coalfields provided the key battlegrounds during the lengthy struggle. The photographs in the installation Heartlands are from these ex-coalfield sites. The version, Transitions, includes images from every coalfield site operating at the start of the miners strike. The photographs pose questions about the loss of manufacturing communities and the shaping of post-industrial Britishness. The disappearance of the mines from the British industrial landscape, now almost complete, has consigned to history, the great place names of coalmining. Today, in their wake come new developments, areas of urban and rural land tracts, renamed for contemporary, non-industrial communities.