A41 - a photographic journey in association with the Equality Trust
© Colin McPherson
The inspiration for the A41 Project came from a sign. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that a sign for the A41 was the inspiration for the project.
It was as I was walking up Park Lane in central London that this sign became apparent to me. It indicated traffic should make a left turn onto the A41. As I stood opposite Marble Arch, in one of the country's most prosperous thoroughfares, I thought about the other end of the same road. It's a place I am familiar with but I wondered how many people on Park Lane knew that this road's 'other' end is at Birkenhead, on the banks of the river Mersey, in an area which has been blighted for many years by the consequences of de-industrialisation, high unemployment and all the social problems which go with these factors. And I wondered too whether the people of Birkenhead knew what lies at the southern end of the A41. That is not to say that in London the streets are all paved with gold and that there is nothing going for Birkenhead. Quite the opposite. If you dig a little deeper you find that inequality has an effect on every corner of the country, indeed levels of inequality can be said to be more pronounced in the capital than elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
With this in mind, I devised a project which could use photography to explore what inequality means – and to try to visualise it and its consequences. The road would act as my guide and take me along one of England's most historic routes – one that has existed in parts since Roman times – which allowed me to search for visual clues about how and where inequality touches us.
The A41 cuts through a perfect cross-section of England: it travels north from London through the Home Counties to rural Oxfordshire and Warwickshire and then Birmingham and the West Midlands, one of the great engines of the Industrial Revolution which brought wealth and prosperity to many. From there the road meanders through agricultural Shropshire and Cheshire before arriving on the Wirral, finishing at Birkenhead, within site of the fast-changing Liverpool skyline.
For me the project was about the ideas, themes and statistics which inform the issues to do with inequality. There's no doubt inequality is the hottest political topic of today – with politicians from all sides jockeying for position on the contested ground which seeks to describe, define and decipher inequality, its causes and its effects. I decided that my images, set against the backdrop of contemporary England, would form a visual commentary. The crucial question for me was whether I should use people to illustrate the ideas I was communicating. In the end, I settled for an approach which acknowledges the human imprint without actually including people in the photographs. I call them social landscapes.
Colin McPherson is a photographer and visual artist based in north west England. Over the last 25 years, his work has been published and exhibited internationally and he continues to work on assignments, commissions and long-term projects. In 2012, Colin was one of the founders of Document Scotland. For more information about Colin's work, please visit www.colinmcpherson.com
It was as I was walking up Park Lane in central London that this sign became apparent to me. It indicated traffic should make a left turn onto the A41. As I stood opposite Marble Arch, in one of the country's most prosperous thoroughfares, I thought about the other end of the same road. It's a place I am familiar with but I wondered how many people on Park Lane knew that this road's 'other' end is at Birkenhead, on the banks of the river Mersey, in an area which has been blighted for many years by the consequences of de-industrialisation, high unemployment and all the social problems which go with these factors. And I wondered too whether the people of Birkenhead knew what lies at the southern end of the A41. That is not to say that in London the streets are all paved with gold and that there is nothing going for Birkenhead. Quite the opposite. If you dig a little deeper you find that inequality has an effect on every corner of the country, indeed levels of inequality can be said to be more pronounced in the capital than elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
With this in mind, I devised a project which could use photography to explore what inequality means – and to try to visualise it and its consequences. The road would act as my guide and take me along one of England's most historic routes – one that has existed in parts since Roman times – which allowed me to search for visual clues about how and where inequality touches us.
The A41 cuts through a perfect cross-section of England: it travels north from London through the Home Counties to rural Oxfordshire and Warwickshire and then Birmingham and the West Midlands, one of the great engines of the Industrial Revolution which brought wealth and prosperity to many. From there the road meanders through agricultural Shropshire and Cheshire before arriving on the Wirral, finishing at Birkenhead, within site of the fast-changing Liverpool skyline.
For me the project was about the ideas, themes and statistics which inform the issues to do with inequality. There's no doubt inequality is the hottest political topic of today – with politicians from all sides jockeying for position on the contested ground which seeks to describe, define and decipher inequality, its causes and its effects. I decided that my images, set against the backdrop of contemporary England, would form a visual commentary. The crucial question for me was whether I should use people to illustrate the ideas I was communicating. In the end, I settled for an approach which acknowledges the human imprint without actually including people in the photographs. I call them social landscapes.
Colin McPherson is a photographer and visual artist based in north west England. Over the last 25 years, his work has been published and exhibited internationally and he continues to work on assignments, commissions and long-term projects. In 2012, Colin was one of the founders of Document Scotland. For more information about Colin's work, please visit www.colinmcpherson.com
photo © Colin McPherson
Is life expectancy greater in more equal rich countries?
Is life expectancy greater in more equal rich countries?