A Country Kind of Silence by Ian Howorth

A Country Kind of Silence continues my internal exploration of feelings surrounding my sense of identity. A sense that belonging isn’t as unattainable as it is hard to grasp. I still hesitate when anyone asks me where I’m from, no doubt a question owing to my unusual accent. England has been my adoptive home for some time now, 26 years to be exact. However, moving from where my heart is rooted has had a profound effect on me. Feelings of unease and uncertainty have always been with me and many of these are tied to the constant changes I see in my surroundings; these developments have often mirrored a change in myself as time’s gone by.

I wanted A Country Kind of Silence to be a response to this change – of perception and my personal sense of self. I want to celebrate this transitional period with images that show a quiet calm, a moment of silence capturing various tropes of the past before they are lost and forgotten. I associate these visual cues with my adopted sense of identity –