The West Midlands scrub that became a teenager’s paradise
- Text by Geralda Cela
- Photography by Laura Pannack
“Everyone you met was a character,” says photographer Laura Pannack. She’s talking about the young people she discovered at The Cracker, a green patch of scrubland tucked between two housing estates – ‘Tibby’ and ‘The Lost City’ – in Tipton, West Midlands. They became the subjects of her latest project commissioned by arts organisation Multistory.
“Through a narrow alleyway, you enter ‘The Cracker’; rolling grass lined with blackberries and stinging nettles,” reads the project’s opening statement. “Motorbikes, peds and quads bark loudly at all times of the day. The boys race them until they burn out, perfecting the art of the wheelie. The girls nestle around small fires despite the baking summer sun. Here, everyone knows each other.”
It was among this vast wasteland, burnt to a yellowy crisp, that Pannack found her inspiration: a close-knit, insular community with a distinct dialect, that prides itself on its sense of unity. “It felt really nostalgic,” she says. “It felt like a place where all teenagers flee to.”
Pannack, who is known for her intimate portrayals of young people, was keen to show the distinctiveness of the subjects that she came to know. “I don’t want it in any way to be a perception of poverty, because that wasn’t the focus of my experience or what struck me the most. I’ve been to a lot of places where poverty overrode anything else. But in this community, it was more the uniqueness.”
With a compelling tenderness, the photographer captures the sensitive window that exists between childhood and adulthood. “I just find that time of transition fascinating,” she continues. “I think we’re all searching for our identity constantly throughout our life, but this is a particularly intense moment of exploring who they are and will become.”
Although Pannack notes the young people she met were “just good kids, eager to help”, she was sometimes met with hostility and suspicion. “I was definitely an outsider because I’d never pretended to be part of their community. I think that they could see that I respected them.”
“I wasn’t there voyeuristically trying to make a statement, I was just hanging out with them having a good time,” she adds. “And I liked them.”
See more of Laura Pannack’s work on her official website, or follow her on Instagram.
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
You might like
A stark, confronting window into the global cocaine trade
Sangre Blanca — Mads Nissen’s new book is a close-up look at various stages of the drug’s journey, from production to consumption, and the violence that follows wherever it goes.
Written by: Isaac Muk
“Like skating an amphitheatre”: 50 years of the South Bank skatepark, in photos
Skate 50 — A new exhibition celebrates half a century of British skateboarding’s spiritual centre. Noah Petersons traces the Undercroft’s history and enduring presence as one of the world’s most iconic spots.
Written by: Noah Petersons
“I didn’t care if I got sacked”: Sleazenation’s Scott King in conversation with Radge’s Meg McWilliams
Radgenation — For our 20th Anniversary Issue, Huck’s editor Josh Jones sits down with the legendary art director and the founder of a new magazine from England’s northeast to talk about taking risks, crafting singular covers and disrupting the middle class dominance of the creative industries.
Written by: Josh Jones
Free-spirited, otherworldly portraits of Mexico City’s queer youth
Birds — Pieter Henket’s new collaborative photobook creates a stage for CDMX’s LGBTQ+ community to express themselves without limitations, styling themselves with wild outfits that subvert gender and tradition.
Written by: Isaac Muk
The suave style and subtle codes of gay San Francisco in the ’70s
Seminal Works — Hal Fischer’s new photobook explores the photographer’s archive, in which he documented the street fashion and culture of the city post-Gay Liberation, and pre-AIDS pandemic.
Written by: Miss Rosen
The stripped, DIY experimentalism of SHOOT zine
Zine Scene — Conceived by photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya in the ’00s, the publication’s photos injected vulnerability into gay portraiture, and provided a window into the characters of the Brooklyn arts scene. A new photobook collates work made across its seven issues.
Written by: Miss Rosen
