From Salt to Silver

Saltaire Festival 2017
Once again, the magnificent and evocative roof space (a quarter of a mile long!) in Salts Mill, formerly a spinning shed, is being used as part of the Festival. It is hosting a wonderful exhibition of black and white photographs by Ian Beesley, a renowned local documentary photographer. Most of them were taken in 1986/87 when he was commissioned by the (then) National Museum of Photography to document Yorkshire's declining textile mills. He captured the last months of textile production in Salts Mill and then the sad days when the machinery was dismantled and removed. These photos have been archived ever since. They have been augmented by some photos he has taken of the Mill this year, some poignantly taken from the exact same spot as his earlier images. Ian's photos are beautifully accompanied by poems written by the brilliant Yorkshire poet Ian McMillan.

I found it incredibly moving. There is, anyway, something powerful about the roof space itself, echoing with the stories that once unfolded here. Born of the vision of one great man, Sir Titus Salt, nurtured by many others, the Mill (and thus Saltaire itself) stands as a symbol and celebration, once again, of one man's vision to transform and move forward. That man was the late Jonathan Silver, who bought the mill in 1987 and created the powerhouse of industry and tourism that it is today, thirty years later, a vision upheld and developed nowadays by his family.

The exhibition continues until the end of October, open (after the Festival) at weekends only. Go, if you can!

From 'Change of Use' by Ian McMillan:

"And the opposite of managed decline.

This is the present unwrapped

And presented to the present as the future."