Cotton Town
Manchester was the world's first industrial city. Dubbed "Cottonopolis" it was the economic hub of the British Empire and grew symbiotically alongside the Transatlantic Slave Trade. As plantations in the America's expanded, more and more mills were built in the city.
With this project, I attempted to breathe new life into archive material using my own images, recontextualising the history of the Slave Trade and the lives of enslaved people within the setting of contemporary Manchester. This recontextualization is a means of unearthing and interrogating Manchester's history, whilst also exploring photography's ability to examine the past and create new narratives.
