Chris Killip’s Askam-in-Furness, a collection documenting the people and places of the West Coast village during a period of social and political change, will be exhibited at Cooke’s Studios in Barrow from Friday, September 19 to Saturday, November 1.
The exhibition features 20 silver gelatin prints, hand-printed by Mr Killip and on display together for the first time near their place of origin.
Two members of the Askam Town Band, 1982 (Image: Chris Killip Photography Trust / Magnum Photos) Phil Northcott, curator at Signal Film and Media, said: “These images offer us an important and poetic record of a community shaped by industry, landscape, and resilience.
“While selected works in the series have been shown internationally, the complete series has never been shown in its entirety since Chris Killip shared his work with the Askam community soon after he’d made it, in 1982.
“We know that Chris Killip developed a close relationship with members of the community and gave the portrait subjects their portraits to hang in their own homes.
Boy With Pigeon, 1982 (Image: Chris Killip Photography Trust / Magnum Photos) “Coincidentally, one of these is my friend Lee, who was photographed in ‘Boy with Pigeon’ by Killip and given the print.
“Our new research project, which runs alongside this exhibition, is uncovering new stories that reveal more of Chris Killip’s time in Askam.”
The exhibition also includes 59 digital scans from negatives and a selection of previously unseen photographs, recently uncovered during a research project with the Askam community.
Buying an ice cream at Yorkshire Miners’ Gala, one of the pictures in the One Year exhibition that’s running alongside the Askham exhibition (Image: Brenda Prince) Mr Killip’s Askam-in-Furness series, capturing daily life in a coastal village shaped by industrial decline, forms part of his seminal work In Flagrante, documenting the de-industrialisation of Northern England between 1973 and 1985.
Martin Parr, photographer, said: “Chris is without a doubt one of the key players in postwar British photography.
“He led the way in which he would befriend the communities he photographed, and this created the intimacy and strength of his images.”
The Askam exhibition will run alongside ONE YEAR! Photographs from the miners’ Strike 1984–85, a touring show curated by Isaac Blease featuring work by multiple photographers from the Martin Parr Foundation Collection.
The exhibition marks the reopening of Cooke’s Studios following a £1.4 million redevelopment.