From Salt to Silver Exhibition by Ian Beesley Salts Mill Saltaire 2017

Abstract

In 1987 after over 130 years of continuous production Salts Mill closed, built in 1853 by Titus Salt it was the largest industrial building in the world. In 1985 I was commissioned by the National Museum of Photography to create an exhibition for the museum about the wool industry in West Yorkshire. I spent a number of weeks photographing Salts Mill when in production and its subsequent closure and fall into dereliction. Only a couple of these images were used in the exhibition at the National Museum of Photography. In 2016 the Silver family owners of Salts Mill, (which is now a world heritage centre and internationally renown art gallery and retail complex) approached me to see what photographs I had of Salts Mill. I was surprised to find that I had over 1000 negatives from the 1980s. For the 30th celebration of Salts redevelopment as an arts centre they commissioned me to create an exhibition for their world famous roof space using my archive material but also rephotographing some of the spaces I had visited in the 1980s.