Issue 105 / November 2019

In his works The Dirt I’m Made Of, displayed as
part of his first solo exhibition at Output Gallery
in September, writer and photographer SCOTT
CHARLESWORTH locates the homebound
escapism of the corridors that stretch over
the idling sweeps in the River Mersey. The
collection of photographs and poems capture
his personal reflections of a landscape subtly in
transit, momentarily freed from its foundations
by the lives that pass over its contours.
A
s strange as it seems to use a symbol of the motorway in my exhibition,
the work itself was birthed from the act of travelling up and down constant
motorways within my life. Firstly, as a child and as a spectator, where
everything seemed possible. Secondly, as a young adult and looking out
through the window with a more cynical view of the world, repenting the past in hope of
pastures greener. Then thirdly, as who I am now and whatever that may be; humbled by
the place that I simultaneously owe nothing and everything to. There was one evening
that I drove past The Sporting Ford pub, the one featured in this series. It was always an
establishment that I’d been wary of, mainly because I had never seen its curtains drawn.
On that one evening, despite having been set alight the night before, The Sporting Ford
revealed more of its battered and boarded up self than it had ever done in my lifetime
of passing it by. It was as a result of this that I felt compelled to look at old settings
with the eyes given to me through these three stages of my life, catalysing the heavily
romanticised and nostalgically intertwined photograph that I felt compelled to take.
Words and Photography: Scott Charlesworh / @Scottcharley
scottcharlesworthphotography.com
THE DIRT I’
The Dirt I’m Made Of
White lines on blue signs lead
me back to friends of old.
Perennial youth, once made of
stone, succumbed to attrition.
Their faces disfigured and weathered;
their hands ground to bone.
The cracks in familiar pavement
have pulled further apart;
now pits upon the floor.
The meandering workers’ misery
march, still out in full force.
The same eight grey towers pollute innocent skies
in the only way that they have ever known.
Once thought invincible Northern grit
now washed upon the Western bank;
yet steel structures still stand strong.
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