"Deconstruction", Northumberland, circa 2012
These photographs were taken at the old Alcan smelter and aluminium site at Ashington shortly after the closure of the plant. It was one more blow to the industrial economy of North East England.
When I looked back at the photographs afterwards, I was struck by a sense of bleakness. I found myself wanting to use every photo I'd taken, however out-of-focus, repetitive and boring. It seemed that the sheer volume needed somehow to be used.
I created the "Deconstruction" project, which was designed as a graphic journal and notebook where people could write in as they saw fit. Every page in the book was chosen to be both meaningful and forgettable in its own way: the light behind the towers, the way the pit ponies approached and left again, tags on walls that would soon be demolished. Each page of the journal is designed to be overwritten, just as the site would be eventually overwritten, but in a way in which that meant that moment in time would never be forgotten.
The book was never printed as a physical journal (apart from a single prototype I filled with my own text), but all of these pages -- along with everything they were supposed to represent -- remain.
