Sam Welburn Photography

My PhD Thesis can be accessed here.

https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/beachcomber

Beachcomber: Rhythms of the Coast is the project/research that served as the practical elements of my PhD.

This practice-based research concentrates on seven North Eastern seaside resorts (Scarborough, Bridlington, Cleethorpes, Filey, Hornsea, Skegness and Seaham). Through the utilisation of documentary photography and psychogeographic walking the research aims in reconnecting the contemporary seaside experience to its historical links with the coal mining industry and the working-class community of the region. The seaside space emerged as a space of leisure during the early 19^th century through the annual visits of the industrial workers providing an escape from their working conditions for them and their families. The combination of deindustrialisation in the region and the rise of holidays abroad has disrupted the patterns of leisure and work in the North of England during the 1960s onwards. However, the notion of going on trips to the seaside resorts has remained an ongoing part of working-class culture. The research sets out to explore how can the concept of deindustrialisation be reconsidered through a photographic psychogeographic inquiry into sites of leisure?