Hockley Flyover

From the shadows alongside the hockley flyover

Stair well leading down into the subway dark, stinking and dirty passage. Captured around midday the light throws a spotlight on the discarded frosty Jack cider bottles.

Flooded subway tunnel and midday light throw it into darkness reflecting the subway graffiti

Graffiti writer subway at Hockley Flyover

Willaim Mitchell's concrete wall sculpture at Hockley Flyover Birmingham

Notes

The Hockley Flyover(2020)

Documentary photography project commissioned in 2020 to create a visual record of the Hockley Flyover (A41 overpass) in Birmingham built around 1965. The concrete A41 flyover dominates the landscape at Hockley Circus a busy interchange which also includes a network of subways for pedestrians and a large public spaces underneath the overpass.

The photographs were made during the COVID-19 pandemic during a series of solo lockdown walks that capture the solitude of the space, the impact of COVID-19 restrictions on the road and peoples fleeting interactions through the space. It explores some of the social and environmental issues that blight the area.

As well as recognising the Hockley Flyover as a site used by graffiti writers for several decades and the ongoing battle over wall space between the writers and the local authority.

See also cyanotypes made to re-imagine William Mitchell's concrete sculpture here