In February Sandwell Arts Cafe will host an exhibition by local photographer Sid Turner, based on his travels along the lesser known and forgotten paths of the Black Country’s recent industrial past.

This Photographic exhibition , documenting a lost world, hidden in a post-industrial landscape , Ruinous desolate stretches of railway track slowly decay back into the forest, canals that go nowhere and the wondrous engineering buried beneath our feet
The marks of human industry are everywhere. Ours is a working environment and since the arrival of the first human settlers it has been managed and transformed.
Scarred by ironmaking, coal and mineral extraction as the area was turned to the demands of industry and the radical transformation of land and society which followed in its wake, The landscape clearly bears the legacy of its industrial past, in the form of colliery spoil, abandoned tramways, canals, reservoirs, quarries and tunnels., not so long ago our families knew these routes like the back of their hand
The abandoned pathways criss-cross the borough east to West and North to South. Turned once again into swathes of countryside as repossessed by nature.

For more information and updates on exhibition activity pleae visit the Arts Cafe and Festival website