A run-down mill, with some space used as rehearsal rooms for bands.
Antwerp Mansion
The Mansion is a not-for-profit renovation project based in Rusholme. The building is owned by a former student tenant of the property, and aims to become a gallery, music rehearsal space and music venue. I found the former website for The Mansion through a link and exhibited some work there (from the previous posts here), after which one of the founding members of The Mansion asked me to document the ongoing regeneration of the building. I agreed to return every couple of months to photograph the changes that took place.
The building and project captured me - something about the potential of the place and the determination of the group in the face of obvious walls to scale, both metaphorically and physically.
Len Grant
Grant is a freelance photographer and writer based in Manchester. I have been aware of his work for some years, having used his photographs as inspiration for my students in a project on regeneration in Manchester. A major theme of his work is urban regeneration, and this began to interest me.
Photographing abandoned buildings is interesting but had started to become depressing; I didn't want to concentrate all my work on the derelict places in Manchester. My home city has so much potential that it was becoming difficult to represent it only through its failings. Grant's work made me realise that I could incorporate the work I had already done with a more positive outlook on the city.
Grant's project on Maine Road had previously caught my eye, as I lived behind the stadium as it was demolished; the images captured the change in the area in objective detail, capturing the 'factual' information I thought important;
I also love Grant's work After the Bomb as the IRA bomb of 2006 was such a defining moment, both in my own memory and in Manchester's past.
And finally, an image I just love...
Henk van Rensebergen
Rensbergen is a Belgian pilot, who also takes photographs of abandoned places. His work varies - I dislike the stereotypical urbex images with HDR and overly dramatic skies, but love his peaceful monochrome images.
Do you think of yourself as a photographer who explores or as an explorer who takes pictures?
"I'm an explorer who takes photos"
An interesting distinction - I would classify myself as the former, in contrast with Rensbergen.
What is your dream location?
"Any location that is untouched so it can tell a story"
A location can only tell a story if it has been touched at some point - otherwise, there is no human story to tell. Rensburgen means that no-one else has altered the building since its demise, yet how can he ever be sure that what he is seeing is the historical 'truth'? Every interaction within the building merely adds to the story.
Robert Polidori
Polidori is a Canadian photographer, now a staff photographer for The New Yorker. His work is held in MOMA and The Metropolitan Museum in New York.
His work depicts the notion of rooms as 'memory theatres'
Chernobyl:
Hurricane Katrina:
The contrasts in Polidori's images attracts me: the minimalism and the chaos; the garish colours against the muted, faded shades; the delicacy juxtaposed against the devastation.
The Horse and Jockey, Bleak Hey Nook
The Horse and Jockey closed in 2006, suffering fire damage in 2007, which left the structure unstable.
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