We invite you to look at the high street as never before. Over the next 12 months, we’re asking you to uncover the stories in front of and behind the shopfronts and to post your own photographs on Instagram using #PicturingHighStreets. Your photos will contribute to an unofficial photographic archive of the English high street; charting and celebrating the history and experiences of the people and places that make up an often-overlooked fixture in all our lives as part of this project led by Historic England.
Starting on Wednesday 28 September 2022, anyone and everyone is invited to join in with a fortnightly challenge that will create a rich and varied picture of our high streets. To complete the challenges - fronted by photographers, celebrities and community leaders - you will need to visit your local high streets and discover the secret stories of these places of commerce, conversation and community.
The most evocative photographs will be featured on the Picturing High Streets Instagram channel. A selection of photographs submitted before 6 December 2022 will be displayed in a national outdoor exhibition opening in March 2023 filling advertising space, outdoor exhibition panels and shop windows on high streets across England. These photographs will also enter the Historic England Archive, the nation’s archive for England’s historic buildings, archaeology and social history.
We know high streets are struggling. Their futures feel uncertain and they are facing a pivotal moment in their long histories. Help us record a year in the life of the high street.
Follow @PicturingHighStreets on Instagram and post your pictures using #PicturingHighStreets.
Picturing High Streets is an Historic England project led by Photoworks. Taking place from 2021-2024, the project aim is to create a contemporary picture of England’s high streets. The project has two parts: a socially-engaged photographer in residence programme and a public call out to create an unofficial photographic archive of the English high street on Instagram. The project is produced in partnership with GRAIN Projects, Impressions Gallery, Open Eye Gallery, PARC (Photography and the Archive Research Centre), Photofusion, QUAD/FORMAT, Redeye, ReFramed and The Photographers’ Gallery.
