Unwrap the Image: Nicky Bird
Barrow Paper Mill project with
artist Nicky Bird
25 March - 23 April 2022
The Exhibition
In November 2021, we began working with Artist Nicky Bird as part of our Unwrap the Image Commission.
Nicky Bird is a socially engaged artist whose artwork investigates archive photographs and the hidden stories they tell. Nicky often collaborates with people who have significant connections to the places captured in photographs as well as including artefacts, oral histories, mapping and archaeology as part of her work.
The Commission
For Nicky's initial research for the project she was struck by the photographs the Sankey Family had taken of women workers at Barrow's Paper Mill, a number of which have just been on show at the Dock Museum.
From January 2022 Nicky collaborated with Sankey Volunteers, a new Women's History Group, and Past Papermill Workers to create work for the exhibition, Going Through the Mill, shown in April 2022
"These photographs raise all kinds of compelling questions. It has already been a real privilege to hear local women's own stories of their working lives at the papermill, and delight to see their own photographs too - so very much within living memory. "
Research & Community
For Nicky's initial research for the project she was struck by the photographs the Sankey Family had taken of women workers at Barrow's Paper Mill, a number of which have just been on show at the Dock Museum.