Over Ten Locks

The Glamorganshire canal used to run all the way from Merthyr Tydfil deep in the valleys of South Wales down to the docks of Cardiff. Twenty-five miles long with fifty-one locks, the canal opened in 1794 and quickly became essential to servicing the coal, iron, and steel industries that the area was known for. Though the canal was phased out in favour of railways, and later roads, for the first forty-fifty years of its life it had a huge impact on the growth of business and communities along it. Today it has largely disappeared. With one half largely being covered by the A470 and the rest being buried by carious building developments. Over Ten Locks uses a traditional documentary style to photograph the landscape and people encountered over retracing just a short portion of the canal that runs through Pontypridd. The images seek to explore what traces of the canal, the old world it belonged to, and the spirit of the industry it fed, are left both physically and metaphorically.