For almost ten years Brooks has been returning to his childhood home in Derbyshire to photograph the land and research the story of his family's printing press, a business which he knew very little about due to the death of his father when he was a teenager. By employing a mixture of exquisitely composed, atmospheric, large format colour portraits and landscapes combined with archival fragments and pages of letterpress, Chris Brooks examines the pull of history and the complicated nature of belonging and family. By doing so, he draws our attention to the constantly changing meaning of what it is to be 'in' and 'of' England. 'The Brooks Press of Wirksworth' is thus a timely meditation on changing notions of nationhood, identity and the power of place.
The Brooks Press of Wirksworth