Village is a Global World

Jindrich Streit

The ex-mining villages in South West Durham photographed in the mid-1990s by the Czech photographer in a residency that grew out of 1993’s Unclear Family workshop in Crook.

Streit documented his home community of Sovinec in the 1970s & 80s, opening up a wider investigation into villages around the world when the collapse of the Soviet bloc allowed easier international movement. The year after the international photography project in Crook, a residency was set up in Rookhope. Streit photographed in the ex-mining villages around Crook and in Rookhope, where fluorspar mining had also ended in the 60s/70s, when most of the collieries had closed in the villages of Wear Valley. Streit once wrote about his photography, ‘To take a picture of a fire or a strike is attractive, but to take a picture of two people having lunch is a real art.’

All images © Jindřich Štreit

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