Meanwhile, Ciara Leeming has been working with a group of participants from Café71, a safe, non-clinical community space in Chester for people struggling to cope in a crisis. Using the history of the Rows as a loose starting point, the group spent nine weeks revisiting their local area through the perspective of a camera lens. Participants have taken personal and collective photo walks, retracing their daily steps to and from the town centre and Chester Rows, and have played with archival imagery of the local area through photo-collage and photo elicitation with their own new imagery. The project has supported participants to reconsider the details of their everyday surroundings. It has also generated conversations about how places like the Rows, quieter spaces that sit above the hustle and bustle of the high street, can function as places of safety and sanctuary. Leeming’s work also highlights how collaborative practice can still yield individually driven and personal outcomes: each participant has brought their own personality and creative spin to the work, with everything from painting and stitching onto photographs to poems written to weave in and out of photo series.
Photographers Tony Mallon and Lucy Hunter have been working in Prescot for the past year. Mallon has been running ‘photography memory fairs’, to which people are invited to bring along personal snapshots or family albums to start conversations about their connection to, and memories of, Prescot. Over time, these events have enabled Mallon to build up trust and friendships with those attending. He has made portraits of the participants that will sit alongside their archival imagery and stories to build a full picture of who makes up Prescot, both past and present. The project has provided a fascinating glimpse into people’s local memories and brought a wealth of personal social histories into the public domain. One resident shared a personal collection of over 300 postcards of Prescot that he had collected throughout the years, something which, before the fair, he had never shared with anyone else. It’s a beautiful example of the power of social history and photographic archives to spark new interest in people and place.
Lucy Hunter has been working with year 5 pupils from Prescot Primary School, which is just outside the town centre. Hunter’s group has been investigating the local area through photographic walks, exploring the layers and textures that exist but often get missed along the high street. In a way, they have repurposed the space and used the streets as a newfound playground. The pupils have also worked with Lucy to create a series of portraits, which playfully overlay their own image against the backdrop of their local high street.
What is becoming evident from each of these projects is the diversity of practice that can develop from a collaborative process. Multiple voices can create a richer set of stories. As the curator and theorist Ariella Azoulay argues, ‘the photograph is never solely the realization of the preconceived plan or vision of a single author, but is rather the outcome of an encounter’.2 Photography is thus inherently well suited to being a social process.
All these projects have demonstrated how, through collective investigation of everyday surroundings, new perspectives and stories of the local high street can emerge. Using archival imagery and personal reflections as a starting point can also support unfolding dialogues and strengthening connections to take place between photographer and people, and between people and place.