Saturday Girl About Town launched in Blackpool on September 29th with the most wonderful afternoon at Blackpool School of Art. The gallery there is positively luminous - just a joy of a space with the community there using it for classes and meetings as well as for exhibitions.
I have loved working here! Blackpool has a wild spirit. These folks live in a town that has built itself by inviting visitors into spaces of reinvention, magic, of escape and celebration which is embodied in Winter gardens seen here. The wild wild sea laps onto the edges of the town, blowing its salty breath through the streets. The sugary invitation to leave work day cares behind and dive into escape, laughter, fast rides and bright lights are infused within generations of families, of local communities and into these young creative selves. There is a freedom here, a spirit of playful invention that is seen, worn, embodied. This is Blackpool.
Blackpool is a place of childhood for generations of Northern folks who holidayed here, who spent their summer weeks leaving the towns and cities to dive into escapism, relaxation, entertainment. It belongs to many as memory, as tradition, as family and community bond. Photography has rich pickings here, if not easy prey, as folks roll in and out of the arcades and onto the bright bright streets full of lager, sugar, the freedoms away from responsibility. This is the legacy of photography here and one I am keen to steer clear from. Saturday Girl About Town is a collaboration, a celebration. it is a photographic response to the people of Blackpool and their creativity.
Saturday Girl About Town Blackpool is a celebration of the youthful creative spirit of this town and the language of fashion, of self expression that is infused with ebb and flow of water, the currents of culture and how we can read something of where we are going as a society through the ways folks choose to be visible.
The exhibition is on until November 25th.
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