People at work

A few years ago – before Brexit erased all other political conversation – Multistory worked with Magnum Photos on an ambitious project to document British manufacturing. Nine outstanding photographers visited places where people make things, from fountain pens to warships, from wool to robots, to create a fascinating portrait of human industry. I was commissioned to document and report on the project, so I interviewed some of the people involved – workers, managers, curators and artists (although none of them described themselves as such). It was the first time I’d used film to tell the story of a project, and the interviews and other material were included in the touring exhibition. As often the case in my art work, that was possible thanks to the craft of others, in this case my daughter, who is a film editor. Watching the film again, six years on, I was surprised how much I was moved by the picture it gives of people at work. At a time dominated by talk – whose conviction increases with its distance from reality – it is worth remembering all the people on whose ingenuity, skill and labour the world we inhabit actually depends.