Photographer captures the lost industrial landscape

Is Wales’ once proud industrial history left quietly in the hands of nature and decay?

For artist Jon Pountney, who has spent the past decade documenting the remains of Welsh industrial history, the question is an important one.

He settled in Wales after arriving in Cardiff to study photography at university in the 1990s and, despite being a long-time resident, says: “I always like to say that I’m looking from a non-native point of view. .

“History has always interested me and recent history – in the grand scheme of things, these ruins are fairly recent.”

The idea to focus on the industry first surfaced closed to his then-home in Cardiff, in the foreshore area of ​​Splott, when he worked on a project that was then shown in Oriel Colwyn in North Wales.

He said: “It’s a very interesting place. It’s not a sandy beach. It’s made of brick rubble that came from a steel factory in East Moors, which was on the beach side, and what’s called a slum clearance on the road south of Splott in the late 1970s- an.

“So this beach is made of this industrial detritus that’s just been thrown into the water and left behind. From a distance it’s beautiful, but when you get down to look closely, it’s all brick and rubble.

He has taken pictures from all over south Wales in particular and central Wales when he started exploring beyond Cardiff, starting with the valley, near where he now lives in Treforest, Rhondda Cynon Taf.

“I will see the amazing sights that are everywhere in the valley. They are hidden in plain sight because there are so many.

“What I found in doing this project is that there are so many places that are not protected or loved or used,” he said.

“A big part of this project is a warning to the future that this post-industrial space is the industrial space of today. If you look at somewhere like Port Talbot – what will Port Talbot steelworks look like in 100 years?

“I think of Ozymandias’s poem where there is a statue that appears in the desert. It used to be a god-like figure of Pharaoh looking for civilization but now it’s just a desert.

“There are some statues in the valley of coal and iron, and now there is nothing or industrial areas. What was worked or coal mines have disappeared and replaced only many warehouses in some places.

Some of the Welsh industrialists are among the richest people in the world, despite their small footprint today, and they wonder if the same fate awaits today’s financial giants.

“To think about how we manage that space, how we manage that space and the wealth that’s created, what it once brought back to Wales as a community and again the story of today.

“The people who work in Port Talbot get a good salary, but all the money that the site has had to make in the past or still can be made in government ownership, so it’s a profit, and that’s the subtext to the project.

“Aesthetically it’s about the space, but it’s a subtext that we can learn from for the future.”

One of the places Jon has set his sights on is Cwmystwyth in Ceredigion, near Aberystwyth.

He explained: “This is a valley that was an ancient gold, tin and copper mine, where I think one of the oldest man-made gold objects in Wales was discovered not long ago.

“Wow, the view. If it was anywhere in the world there would be a visitor center and a place to tell about this view, but obviously in Wales we only do castles.

“The landscape itself, where all the mineral ores have been washed from the hillsides, the greens, the oranges, just incredible colors, and I can get there at a time when the light is changing rapidly with the wind and the clouds and it just looks amazing.

“It made me think that I should continue this project.”

“I think nature has done a lot to erase a lot of this history and I think it’s happening at an incredible speed.

He described a meeting with former miners who spoke about the “hellscape” of loot tips and the ruined landscape at the time of the pit, who had asked who would want to live there.

But now “60 years or whatever, he says ‘that’s me. I’m here now. There’s a bird of prey, it’s quiet, you can hear the water flowing’.”

“It really surprised me because I couldn’t imagine how horrible the landscape was.

“They (the rest of the industry) almost look like stupidity or almost made naturally and are clearly part of the idea of ​​the project. It is strange to see how quickly trees and shrubs and things can remove the stone wall.

Jon is now planning to expand the project further into north Wales after receiving a commission to work in the Blaenau Ffestiniog area with young people, reflecting on the landscape.

He will also seek to document the Port Talbot steel works for an academic project looking at how the end of work in an area affects local people.

“Port Talbot is the last stronghold of its kind, unfortunately, and what is left?” he asked.

“Not much unfortunately.”