Ken Grant, Cwm: The Fair Country

Cwm: The Fair Country

Ken Grant

Publisher
RRB Photobooks
Year
2025
Specifications
Softcover
Limited Edition of 400 Copies
116 pages
Colour photographs
Text components and locations spanning Beaufort, Ebbw Vale and Fochriw

For nearly thirty years photographer Ken Grant photographed the South Wales Valleys. The images in Cwm: The Fair Country record the gradual post-industrial transition of the landscape and the communities weathering change—watched by the steadfast ponies who have populated the valleys for centuries. Grant's photographs—made in locations across the region, including Beaufort, Ebbw Vale and Fochriw—show the green of the hills disrupted by artery-like roads, concrete bridges and rows of workers' terraced houses; a hill studded in canvas to keep a former coal tip from landslide and tragedy; a playground standing firm as the steel plant that once surrounded it is dismantled. Wild ponies inhabit many of the landscapes and have witnessed what industry has done to the Welsh valleys and its people over the past centuries. Collectively the photographs create a singular and layered account of a much-photographed region—foregrounding the beauty, the scars and the life that persists despite the weight of an industry's passing.

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