Middlewich, Cheshire UK
The Pad is a short film that made as part of the final project submission for a Masters in Contemporary Art and Archaeology (March 2025). It uses a contemporary location as a viewpoint from which to introduce stories of the journeys, interactions, and influences of Cheshire salt over a history of extraction that has lasted over two thousand years, and continues today. Stories were unearthed by means of archival research, informal interview, community engagement, and creative practice. The project includes a exhibition at the Lion Salt Works museum in Northwich from September 2025.
The overall project was an investigation of the evolution of the transport routes of salt from Cheshire since the Iron Age. As a creative engaging with my environment through archaeological, historical, and creative methods, I instinctively follow iterative cycles of research-led practice and practice-led research to pursue my research questions.
I was at a point in my project where my ‘made’ work was well resolved, but I felt I needed a vehicle to communicate some of the understanding of the salt industry that I had gained through my research. It was on a visit to British Salt to collect barrels of brine that I first saw the Pad up close and was captivated by the shapes, colours and nature of it.
The film is inspired by ‘Guttersnipe’ by Angela Piccini, who recorded a panning shot of kerbstones in Bristol with a camera resting in a baby’s pushchair, over which she delivered a monologue on the history of the buildings and people of the street, all of whom remain tantalisingly out of shot.
The Pad became my kerbstones: a contemporary visual from which to hang my stories of salt’s past, present, and future.