Steelworks: Consett, from steel to tortilla chips

For 140 years Consett in County Durham was synonymous with the production of iron and steel. Then in 1980, the steelworks was shut and subsequently dismantled by the largest demolition project in Europe. Germain uses his and other photographs (most notably Tommy Harris’s pictures made for the local newspaper, as well as family snapshots) to give an account of Consett. ‘Steel Works’ examines the social impact of a major industrial closure and evokes the broader social changes of the 1980’s – Thatcher’s Britain – when communities that had been shaped by industrial processes which offered jobs and identity were threatened by a new culture of economic expediency.