Despite glorious sunshine throughout spring, the town remained largely deserted because of the Covid-19 lockdown, at a time when it would usually be bustling with sun-seeking tourists, local families, and shoppers.
Henry Iddon, Dawn Mander, Kate Yates, and Claire Walmsley Griffiths’ work will ensure there is a photographic record of such an unprecedented time, so future generations may never forget the sacrifices we all made to, as the Government sold it, protect the NHS and save lives.
Their images form part of the Grundy Art Gallery’s WorkTownGhostTown project, which was inspired by a 1937-40 study of Blackpool and Bolton, known as the Worktown Project, which profiled the resort as a “site of mass tourism and pilgrimage for working people,” the gallery said.
The photographs will be collated before being shown off in the gallery’s Rotunda space next summer.
All pictures © the artist. Courtesy of the artists and Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool; part of WorkTownGhostTown (May - July 2020)
7.
Social distancing markers on the Prom at North Shore, for the Street Angels soup kitchen, on March 31, 2020 (Picture: Henry Iddon)
8.
The old North Shore boating lake, now a go-kart track, lying abandoned during the lockdown (Picture: Claire Walmsley Griffiths)
9.
A couple wearing face masks sit at a bus stop in Corporation Street in the town centre on May 11, 2020 (Picture: Henry Iddon)
10.
Looking down Bonny Street towards Chapel Street, behind the old police station (Picture: Kate Yates)
