Crawley

Crawley by Sam Appleby

'Though over forty years old [in 1990], Crawley is, and will always remain a New Town. The spectre of the New Town has become ingrained in the popular imagination of post-war Britain. Widely seen as a particular kind of utopian town planning gone wrong, New Towns are seemingly places without identity that have come to signify a unique form of highly rational but soulless urban space.

'For Sam Appleby the nature of this kind of space is more complex and, in turn, its representation is more problematic. In fact his approach in this work is not to 'represent' Crawley as such, certainly not in any conventional social documentary sense, but to simulate 'the elusiveness of space in general'. The images were made through long exposures of up to four minutes, compressing time but elaborating and energising space. The environment is deliberately transformed from something stable and utilitarian into something shifting, alive with immanent change - a highly charged electric drama, directed by the surveillant glare of artificial light.

'The accompanying texts were drawn from a variety of sources: from the English anti-urban writings of the last century and from the Garden City movement which they spawned; from the British New Town movement and its ideals of design and community; from cultural theory and the discourses of space and geography; and from the popular press. They are intended as counterpoints to the pictures, suggesting meanings but not unravelling the wider cultural and political questions that lie behind the gleaming surface of the image.'

David Chandler, The Photographers' Gallery, 1990


Sam Appleby was born in London in 1960. His family then moved to Crawley where he lived until he was 19. He studied urban geography in the early 1980s and later began a serious interest in photography. The print version of Crawley was first shown at The Photographers' Gallery, London in 1990 and subsequently toured. The audiovisual tape-slide version was also shown at The Photographers' Gallery and at Cambridge Darkroom.

Photography and music by Sam Appleby

Texts from various sources

Spoken by Alistair Roberts & Caroline Roux

Sam Appleby 1989/2024

https://samappleby.myportfolio.com/

[email protected]