Earlier this year, Signal Film and Media commissioned photographer Nicholas J.R. White to turn his lens on Barrow-in-Furness, creating a contemporary response to the iconic Sankey Photography Archive - a unique collection of imagery that captures the industrial and social heritage of Barrow-in-Furness and the surrounding areas.
The Sankeys were a father and son trio who documented life in Barrow and Cumbria over 70 years. Starting around 1900, they captured the landscape, cultural changes, everyday lives and work up until the 1970s.
The result is The Binding Tide, a striking new series that offers a fresh perspective on the landscapes, communities, and waters that define this region, weaving together its working heritage and coastal identity with an eye to both its past and its evolving future.
The Binding Tide outdoor exhibition, which opens for the summer on 9 July at the Town Hall Courtyard on Barrow’s Duke Street, together with Dawn Parsonage’s The Workers exhibition (locations: Barrow Library, Barrow Station, Cavendish Street ginnel and Dandy’s Furniture Store), represents a central component of the 2-year photography curation project Sankey: Lives Through the Lens, which is expected to engage 1000’s of people across Barrow and Cumbria and for which Signal have been supported with an award of £250,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The team at Signal are expert in the conception and delivery of community and creative interventions which result in huge positive change – often far beyond West Cumbria. The Lives Through a Lens project is set to further cement the 25-year-old arts organisation, (which was the brainchildof Ulverston Filmmakers Loren Slater and Kerry Kolbe – and ultimately became Signal Film and Media) as a vital community anchor, with inspiring workshops, masterclasses, volunteering opportunities, events and exhibitions to engage the local community with the Sankey Photography Archive, commencing this week (From 18 June).
Much of Nicholas J.R. White’s work explores the intersection of the human and non-human world, particularly through landscape and portrait photography. He is interested in themes of belonging, placemaking, and community, with a focus on how people interact with their natural spaces. His work with the Sankey Photography Archive deepens these themes as Barrow itself is a town shaped both physically and socially by water.
The work was made along the margins of Barrow, tracing the coastal route as it leaves the inland Lake District towns and winds on to reach the fringes of Barrow on the coast. "I wasn’t looking to replicate photographs from the archive," White explains, "rather craft a contemporary response to conversations started by the Sankey’s. Excessive planning extinguishes serendipity and so I decided instead to be led by curiosity, allowing for chance encounters of both people and place."
This spontaneous approach led White to photograph subjects not previously captured in the Sankey Archive, such as off-grid settlements by the Duddon Estuary and the Furness Model Boating Club, which has been in existence since 1895. White was also drawn to subjects that resonated with the themes explored by the Sankey photographers, such as a portrait of Dayle riding her horse, Lucy, at low tide - a subtle reference to the workhorses depicted in the industrial past of the shipyards and factories. A striking image of a wildfire at Biggar Bank echoes the dense black smoke that permeates many of the images in the Sankey Archive.
White was also mindful of how Barrow has historically been depicted, often through the lens of intense industry and wartime production. "I was also aware of how the town has been portrayed in the past and was keen to steer the visual discourse towards that of quiet beauty," he explains."The Sankey’s photographed Barrow during two World Wars and in periods of intense industry; where man’s presence landed like a sledgehammer."
White’s work drifts away from the clang of machinery and the weight of legacy, instead tracing quieter currents of beauty, belonging, and life along the town’s changing shoreline. This series comes at a time when the town’s social and political landscape is undergoing significant change, with Barrow recently being awarded 'Royal' status for its role in the UK’s nuclear submarine programme.
White’s The Binding Tide offers a fresh perspective on the town’s evolving identity and its relationship to the surrounding environment. "As a new wave of intense industry crashes into Barrow, I hope that The Binding Tide contributes to an alternative view of the town, its people, and the landscapes that surround it."
Further details about White’s work and the full heritage project commissioned by Signal Film and Media can be found HERE
All images: © Nicholas J.R. White from the series: The Binding Tide, 2025
