The ghost streets of 1960s Birmingham – in pictures

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In 1968, American photographers Janet Mendelsohn and Richard P. Rogers documented the suburbs of Birmingham, fraught with poverty and poor housing conditions. Their photographs are currently being exhibited as part of the Flatpack Film Festival


  • In the late 1960s, American filmmaker and photographer Janet Mendelsohn spent several months documenting the everyday life of Balsall Heath, as part of her studies at the University of Birmingham.
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    Ghost Streets of Balsall Heath


  • These images are a vivid record of the community in flux.
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    Ghost Streets of Balsall Heath
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    Ghost Streets of Balsall Heath


  • Many of the streets depicted were demolished soon afterwards.
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    Ghost Streets of Balsall Heath


  • The pictures explore a social housing crisis, poverty, migration and the experience of childhood in the area
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    Ghost Streets of Balsall Heath


  • Ghost Streets of Balsall Heath is at the Ort gallery, Birmingham, until 28 April as part of the Flatpack Film Festival
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    Ghost Streets of Balsall Heath


  • While Janet Mendelsohn was discovering Balsall Heath, her then partner Richard P Rogers was following young Birmingham artist Frank Cook and photographing the city
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    Frank Cook and the Birmingham Scene


  • Rogers’ images, showing in Birmingham for the first time since they were taken fifty years ago, offer a panorama of the city at a time of disorienting change
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    Frank Cook and the Birmingham Scene


  • The photographs cover everything from slum clearances and traveller camps to the Midlands Arts Centre in its early years
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    Frank Cook and the Birmingham Scene


  • Accompanying the photographs are Cook’s reflections from the time on his journey from the Ladywood back-to-backs to a studio at MAC and on to art-school in London
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    Frank Cook and the Birmingham Scene


  • Cook’s recollections of these very different worlds, documented by Rogers, are part of a conversation about social mobility and the arts which continues today
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    Frank Cook and the Birmingham Scene


  • The exhibition of Rogers’ photographs, Frank Cook and the Birmingham Scene, is at MAC Birmingham until the 22nd April, 2018 as part of the Flatpack Film Festival
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    Frank Cook and the Birmingham Scene
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