Changing Spaces is an ongoing project. I enjoy documenting spaces and places that change in some way.
I like to explore the concept of change and in particular the way things change but also stay the same.
Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in 1849 coined the term “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose' - usually translated as 'the more thingss change the more they stay the same.(according to wikipedia).
Alexandra Park Project –
Alexandra Park is a Victorian Town park and is a Grade Two site of national importance on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. The parkt has links back to the cotton era when the park was built by the people of Oldham during the cotton famine sparked by the American Civil War.
I enjoy photographing this park watching the chaging seasons, the changine people and the changing uses of the park. Be that a fair passing through or a charity run. The people changing as they grow older, the different people visiting the park park. The small changes in the park such as trees being felled or the playground being resurfaced. The seasons change, even attitudes towards the park changes. The park is constantly changing but also stays the same old Alexandra Park that stands on the grounds of where an old pig farm once stood in 1863.
I document via video and photography how people use the park, be that riding a bycicle, pushing a pram or running. I photograph the landscape of the park and capture events happening in the park.
Northern Roots Project –
Northern Roots Project is firmly linked to the Alexandra Park Project. Standing next to Alexandra Park on what was once known as Snipe Clough this area of 160 acres is being transformed into an Urban Farm and Eco Park Centre, purportedly to be the largest in UK with an investment of more than 24.4 million pounds.
Once earmarked to be an aerodrome according to newspaper reports I found at the archiving centre, and where the Junior Beautiful Oldham Society once held their opening of Snipe Clough in 1910, Northern Roots will transform the Snipe Clough area and it will undergo dramatic changes over the next few years. I intend to capture as much of those changes as I can.
Spindles Shopping Centre and Tommyfield Market–
Both Spindles and Tommyfield will undergo changes over the next few years, with Tommyfield being completely demolished and redeveloped and moving the Market traders over to the Spindles shopping site. Spindles will undergo changes to accomodate the market traders and prepare for a new usage of offices with the addition of some office based council services moved into those newly developed offices in Spindles.
My plans are to document those changes as they occur over the next few years.
Shoots Photographs 