Well, what a couple of weeks it’s been. A whirlwind of press and media interviews and an opportunity to share work from my series Bank Top which looks at the representation and misrepresentation of the north of England with a particular focus on a tight knit community in Blackburn. The work challenges the notion that Blackburn is ‘the most segregated town in Britain’ (BBC Panorama) and examines the impacts of this kind of divisive and misleading media representation.
I was delighted then to have the work recognised at the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards and to receive the honour of Photographer of the Year, 2021.
What is especially thrilling is that it creates a platform for this work to be seen not just in Blackburn, not just nationally, but internationally. The stories that my collaborator Aziz Hafiz and I heard in Bank Top are, in many ways, universal stories that have a resonance beyond the small community. Rather than a place of ‘segregation’ what we found was a place of ‘congregation’ where people have come together from all corners of the world for generations. Our work, we hope, celebrates the vibrancy of the Bank Top community in all its diversity and challenges those who seek to divide us with their dangerous rhetoric.
Links below to the Sony WPA film, plus recordings from BBC Newsnight and Radio Four Front Row.
https://vimeo.com/540049930/9999cd7820
You can see the selection of the work on the Sony WPA website here: https://www.worldphoto.org/2021-professional-competition-winners
And the wider set on this site in the ‘series’ section: https://www.craigeaston.com/bank-top
We are currently working on a book of this series which we hope will be out later this year. Please sign up to the newsletter for updates.
Many thanks
Craig
