Salford’s Working Class Movement Library in an exhibition developed by the University of Salford will display a small selection of photographs by Salford-born social documentary photographer Shirley Baker.
The exhibition will focus on the way in which the change to the built environment of Salford from ‘slum’ to modern, was captured in Shirley’s work.
The photographs will be displayed alongside material from the Working Class Movement Library’s own collections relating to housing and photography to stimulate the recollection of people’s memories of living in Salford at this time.
Shirley Baker was born in Kersal in 1932 and took up photography at the age of eight when she and her twin sister were given cameras by an uncle.
Shirley went on to study photography at Manchester College of Technology, followed by courses at London Regent Street Polytechnic and London College of Printing, at a time when few women received formal photographic training.
During the 1960s and 1970s Shirley photographed the inner-city working class communities of Manchester and Salford as they experienced ‘slum clearances’. The photographs selected for the exhibition show a community and landscape caught in transition.
This exhibition is part of The Modern Backdrop project which seeks to analyse the transition of Salford from terraced housing, via slum clearance, to modern social housing projects from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. The project is a collaboration between the Modernist Society, the RIBA North West and the University of Salford. It is funded by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Arts.
The exhibition Runs: From 20th Jan 2023 to 21st Apr 2023
