In all my work I respond to an inherited environment - in this instance exploring two post-industrial landscapes that for centuries - and until fairly recently defined the work place and way of life for most local families.
For several years I have been walking a specific former tin mining site of South West Cornwall and a similar coal mining area in South East Scotland, both areas where I live and work. Walking in all weathers as the miners would have done I have photographed the landscape throughout the year, meeting with local people and investigating mining museums, photographic, libraries, bookshops and online archives for information about the sites and for records of the people who made their living through mining.
The project has developed in relation to place, time and land, framing the visual while researching both historic and current land management schemes - which continue to exploit resources for profit - and latterly the development of the mines as tourist and recreation locations and heritage sites where man made 'landscaping' and a return to 'nature' now define these environments. Excerpts from the many documents involved form a linear non narrative text through the films.
Both sites have been worked with varying levels of excavation for generations - they flourished at a similar time and were abandoned with equal antagonism and bitterness. Communities of men, women and children operated the mines, and at the height of production experienced similar working lives.