A photographer’s search for the Black Country

Nobody knows defin­i­tive­ly where the Black Coun­try is. While it still has a dis­tinct work­ing-class iden­ti­ty and dialect, the place itself remains elu­sive. It can’t be found on any offi­cial map and agree­ment on its pre­cise bor­ders has nev­er been reached.

The gen­er­al con­sen­sus is that it’s made up of the four Met­ro­pol­i­tan Bor­oughs of Sandwell, Dud­ley, Wal­sall and Wolver­hamp­ton in the UK’s West Mid­lands. The Black Coun­try exists in the region’s col­lec­tive imag­i­na­tion and social cus­toms as much as geo­graph­ic real­i­ty. Bat­tered chips, fag­gots and peas, pork scratch­ings and home­ly pubs are evoca­tive hall­marks of its tra­di­tion­al heartland.

A vast coal­field fuelled the region’s rapid growth dur­ing the Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion and over 500 fur­naces and fac­to­ries quick­ly sprang up. Being an engine of indus­try, soot, smoke and oil coat­ed the land­scape, bring­ing the Black Coun­try name into pop­u­lar usage dur­ing the 19^th cen­tu­ry. Much that was pro­duced there, from heavy iron chains to del­i­cate glass­work, was trans­port­ed through­out Britain and beyond. Although its crafts­men once helped to con­struct new pos­si­bil­i­ties, the Black Coun­try expe­ri­enced a slow decline in man­u­fac­tur­ing, leav­ing it uncer­tain of its place and pur­pose in the mod­ern world. It has con­tin­ued to trade on its famous past rather than redefin­ing its present and future. At times, the region can feel trapped in nos­tal­gic reflec­tion as decay sets in.

Artist Tom Hicks address­es the cur­rent state of the area, cap­tur­ing its essence in unex­pect­ed ways, through his sprawl­ing pho­tog­ra­phy project Black Coun­try Type, which start­ed in 2017. His images are wil­ful­ly mun­dane and gen­tly humor­ous, but with a mourn­ful edge. They show the Black Coun­try as it is, proud and per­sis­tent despite decades of neglect. Images of chip shops, snook­er clubs, ware­hous­es, sub­ways, tow­er blocks and garage doors abound.

Aged 50, Tom has spent most of his life in the Black Coun­try. The great affec­tion he feels for its many quirks and pecu­liar­i­ties comes across clear­ly in his work. A librar­i­an at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wolver­hamp­ton for more than 20 years, he has always been inter­est­ed in art, design and social sci­ences. His work com­bines them all to great effect.

“The Black Country’s over­looked quite heav­i­ly,” says Tom, who lives in Kingswin­ford. ​“I think it’s qui­et­ly proud. It’s not a place that shouts about itself. That’s just in people’s nature. The humour’s quite dry and self-dep­re­cat­ing. It’s down to earth. It’s prob­a­bly con­sid­ered quite rough in places and there are rea­sons for that. Hope­ful­ly I’m bring­ing out some of the beau­ty of the place as well.”

Nat­u­ral­ly curi­ous, Tom’s instinct has always been to explore. Whether cycling or walk­ing, he heads where the mood takes him, with­out a par­tic­u­lar plan in mind, and takes pic­tures using his iPhone. ​“Cycling’s real­ly imme­di­ate. The same with walk­ing. You can go up alley­ways or cut between trees. You nev­er know what you’re going to see. When you feel lost, your eyes look at things in a fresh way,” he explains.

Tom iden­ti­fied a clear theme in his ear­ly work. Many pho­tographs fea­tured exam­ples of typog­ra­phy – shop signs, graf­fi­ti or inci­den­tal word­ing glimpsed on his trav­els. ​“I’ve always been a big read­er and that’s obvi­ous­ly influ­enced my career. I think I’ve just got this affin­i­ty to words.” Hand­writ­ten signs are a source of par­tic­u­lar fas­ci­na­tion. Their infor­mal­i­ty intrigues and amus­es him. Each one is unique and hints at some­thing about the per­son behind it. Mis­spellings and col­lo­qui­alisms are com­mon. Some are odd­ly ver­bose, oth­ers blunt­ly effec­tive. They speak of self-reliance, an impro­vi­sa­tion­al make-do-and-mend cul­ture that pre­vails across the Black Coun­try. Tom has shown traces of that spir­it him­self, learn­ing on the go and mak­ing a virtue of cer­tain lim­i­ta­tions in knowl­edge or expe­ri­ence. Black Coun­try Type start­ed out as a hyper­local Insta­gram account but soon grew in pop­u­lar­i­ty, spawn­ing prints, books, exhi­bi­tions and pho­towalks. Tom has also col­lab­o­rat­ed with poet Liz Berry and painter Mandy Payne to take his work in dif­fer­ent direc­tions. ​“It’s been sur­pris­ing to me. I didn’t think there’d be the lev­el of inter­est in it that there is.”

An ini­tial­ly hap­haz­ard approach has become far more method­i­cal as a result. ​“I think it’s evolv­ing. If you look at my ear­ly pho­tographs, I’ve not even got off my bike. They’re tak­en in all weath­er con­di­tions. There’s no real thought oth­er than to say, ​‘I like this sign’ or ​‘Look at this bit of graf­fi­ti’. I’ve become more refined about what I’m doing. I was post­ing every day at one point, now it’s like once a week. It’s more con­sid­ered. It’s excit­ing because it’s going in lots of dif­fer­ent directions.”

Tom com­bines the drift­ing aim­less­ness of how he choos­es to gath­er images with their pre­cise pre­sen­ta­tion. Strong lines and warm colours are inte­gral to his aes­thet­ic. Each pic­ture is cropped into a square, care­ful­ly fram­ing the ele­ments that caught his eye, like an album cov­er. This style, and the strong region­al focus that under­pins it, has res­onat­ed with musi­cians like Actress and The Twang, who have com­mis­sioned Tom for pro­mo­tion­al imagery.

There is a com­pelling sim­plic­i­ty to his work. The way he cap­tures the inher­ent grit­ti­ness of the Black Coun­try through vivid con­trast, with an empha­sis on bright, bold signs and dis­tinc­tive word­ing. Dilap­i­dat­ed urban land­scapes are often jux­ta­posed with strik­ing blue skies. There is beau­ty and humour in ordi­nary, unre­mark­able settings.

“I’m try­ing to present things as they are. When it’s sun­ny, it lights up all the sur­faces as your eyes should be see­ing them. I just think it presents things in stark real­i­ty and shows up colour real­ly well,” Tom says. ​“I pre­fer head-on pho­tographs where pos­si­ble. Some of the angu­lar ones are because I can’t get back far enough to get the struc­ture in, like ​‘Do Not Rush’. I love how, with pho­tog­ra­phy, you can cre­ate an abstract pat­tern out of noth­ing real­ly. It’s very flex­i­ble like that.”

Despite the stud­ied pre­ci­sion of his images, Tom doesn’t describe him­self as a pho­tog­ra­ph­er. An admir­er of the work of pho­tog­ra­phers John Myers, Nick Hedges, Richard Billing­ham and Rob Clay­ton, he takes a sim­i­lar­ly unvar­nished approach to doc­u­ment­ing the every­day real­i­ty of the region, includ­ing its evi­dent shab­bi­ness, albeit in more bright and play­ful fash­ion. Painter George Shaw and design­er Ben Kel­ly are not­ed influences.

Aware­ness of Black Coun­try Type con­tin­ues to spread by word of mouth. Tom’s ever-grow­ing col­lec­tion of pho­tographs res­onates with locals but also out­siders, intro­duc­ing them to the area and con­vey­ing what it rep­re­sents through tex­tured snap­shots of urban life where peo­ple are con­spic­u­ous by their absence.

Tom Hicks’ pho­to­book Black Coun­try Type is pub­lished by The Modernist.

This piece appeared in Huck #80. Get your copy here.

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