Westway: a portrait of a community

Westway
This was a solo exhibition of 55 photographs shown at St. Martin-in-the-Fields’ Gallery, London. A print from the exhibition was shortlisted for the World Photography Organisation’s 2013 Awards; selected for the Royal Photographic Society’s annual print exhibition; and short listed for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize for 2013, exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery.

Research Questions
The research explored contemporary society’s reliance and infatuation with the automobile. It examined how individuals and small communities are affected by intense urbanisation; whether living in such an environment had short or long term influences on life opportunities, including education and/or employment; and how a community copes with being dissected by a major structure that has little purpose for them. The research questions broadened during the course of the research to examine the influence of urban redevelopment along the route of the A40 encouraged through changing land values as land that was once worth nothing, became worth millions.

Research Imperatives
The research was primarily sociological, documenting the lives of those living beneath and in the shadow of the A40 flyover in west London which bulldozed through the heart of North Kensington in the 1960s taking with it 600 homes and forcing 1,000 people to leave the area. It also employed methodologies of oral history, using selected quotations from interviewees to accompany the images, developed during a previous project Hard Times (2011).
The research involved working to win the confidence of the subjects Wenham-Clarke intended to photograph and gaining their consent; this included a Gypsy community where outsiders were not normally welcomed.
This project provided unprecedented insights into the homes, businesses, sports facilities and educational centres of those living under the Westway; it also highlighted the multi-cultural aspects of the area and revealed some very positive aspects of living in a modern, ethnically diverse Britain.