TALKS

Daniel Meadows, photographer and digital storyteller, is a twentieth century pioneer of British documentary practice.  His photographs and audio recordings capture uniquely the felt life of the everyday in England. His work has been widely published, exhibited and collected. In 2019, his archive was acquired by the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.

Photo Oxford festival partners with Bluecoat Press to bring you a talk by Daniel Meadows. Daniel will tell the tale of his long-lost work Shuttles, Steam and Soot which he has reconstructed into a touring exhibition accompanied by three new publications.

In 1975, while working as photographer-in-residence to the Borough of Pendle in Lancashire, Daniel  found himself drawn to Bancroft Shed, the last remaining steam powered cotton weaving mill in the district.

“In the time of Johnny Rotten, James Nutter & Sons in Barnoldswick was like something out of Dickens. Vaporised oil hung in the air like incense. It was a place of unholy clatter with a language all its own: slasher sizing machines, flying mice, left-hand frogs.  And busy women in dusty alleys who heard you with their eyes and talked back with their hands.  How could I not engage?”

Against a backdrop of industrial decline, Daniel documented the mills creating a remarkable portrait of the people working there and their vanishing trades.