essay by Phil Griffin
In Our House six photographers document stories of regeneration in Salford, Manchester and Tameside. Shaw + Shaw cover Salford, Len Grant documents New Islington, while Liz Lock & Mishka Henner and Charlie Burns present images of Hattersley. It used to be called slum clearance, now it’s called regeneration. Tens of thousands of families across Britain are experiencing the largest re-housing programme since the 1960s. So what’s it like to be part of this brave new world?
'It’s documenting this process of change that Our House is about. Here we are as photographers, at a moment in this city’s history. We have the privilege of recording it, seeing how it develops. We can give people a voice, a mechanism for putting their views across. And that’s all we can do. It’s not a representative sample, it’s just a series of individuals we’ve all come across and asked, How is it for you?' – Len Grant