History in the Landscape - Salgato

This short series traces the changing identity of a single landscape in rural Wiltshire — from Victorian mine workings to wartime camps, post-war abandonment, and today’s threat of industrial redevelopment. Inspired by the observational approach of Sebastião Salgado, the images focus on the marks left by human activity: fences, ruins, rewilded paths, and rising new barriers. Shot in black and white, the work reflects on how land is shaped, forgotten, and claimed again.

A padlock seals the entrance to a long-abandoned mine. Behind the grid, stone, ivy and steel mark the site of past labour — now made inaccessible. This is where exclusion begins.

Cracked concrete and summer wildflowers share the site of a wartime camp. Known locally as the “Donkey Field,” it has been a space for quiet recreation for over fifty years — now facing development that could erase both access and memory.

A derelict guardroom stands on the edge of woodland, overtaken by ivy and leaf-fall. Once built to control and protect, it now watches over nothing — its authority eroded, its purpose vanished into the trees.

A padlock seals the entrance to a long-abandoned mine. Behind the grid, stone, ivy and steel mark the site of past labour — now made inaccessible. This is where exclusion begins.

Cracked concrete and summer wildflowers share the site of a wartime camp. Known locally as the “Donkey Field,” it has been a space for quiet recreation for over fifty years — now facing development that could erase both access and memory.

A derelict guardroom stands on the edge of woodland, overtaken by ivy and leaf-fall. Once built to control and protect, it now watches over nothing — its authority eroded, its purpose vanished into the trees.

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