THE LAST FOUNDATIONS – HOW IT BEGAN

This was my first time at the former Ravenscraig site. I had only a vague idea of where it was, what had stood there before, and when it had closed. In truth, it felt like an entirely alien landscape to me. In the summer of 2025, I signed up for an Artwalk and outdoor film screening at the site as part of Archfringe. I knew that, being an Archfringe event, it would be something special — something thoughtful, and likely something that wouldn’t be repeated in quite the same way.

The evening began with a walking tour led by artists Frank McElhinney and Hamshya Rajkumar of Tine Collective. What followed was an interactive and sensory Artwalk through Ravenscraig. I had half expected fenced-off industrial buildings, debris, warning signs — the remnants of a recently abandoned past. Instead, I found something that looked almost ordinary: vast stretches of new woodland, open paths, sky. On the surface, it felt quiet, even unremarkable.

But when we stopped at the concrete foundations where the cooling towers once stood, something shifted.  Frank introduced us to the slow, deliberate magic of his pinhole camera. Hamshya spoke about the trees and vegetation reclaiming the land — growth layered over industry. Standing there, on those slabs of concrete, I became acutely aware that beneath this seemingly calm landscape lay a dense and complicated history. This wasn’t empty ground. It was a place that had once functioned as a small industrial town — employing thousands, shaping identities, defining daily life. There were hundreds of stories buried here.

The outdoor screening of Boundary Layers by Amanda Thomson further cemented the importance of the site — how landscape holds memory, how absence can speak as loudly as presence. An impromptu extended tour with the Archfringe team took us deeper into the vastness of the land. Only then did I begin to grasp the true scale of what Ravenscraig had been. It was an insightful evening. I left knowing very little still — but sensing there was something here worth returning to. The idea lodged itself quietly in the back of my mind. Parked. Almost forgotten.

Several months later, over a few shandies on a Saturday afternoon, I met my good mate Gerry — a Motherwell lad with deep-rooted connections to Ravenscraig. In truth, I’m not sure there’s anyone in Motherwell who doesn’t have some connection to it. Gerry spoke about the years after the steelworks closed in 1992. About the realisation that nothing was coming to replace it. Redundancy money was spent quickly. Unemployment took hold. For young men like him, there were few role models, few visible futures. And when the cooling and gas towers were demolished, and Ravenscraig effectively disappeared from the skyline, he said it rang like a proper death bell for the town. That conversation, combined with my earlier walk across the site, brought everything into focus. The physical absence. The personal stories. The scale of what had been lost — and what had endured. I realised there was a project here.

A way to explore not just the land, but the people. Not just what Ravenscraig was, but what its closure meant — then and now, more than thirty years on. Eight months later, after research, funding applications, and a great deal of waiting, The Last Foundations became a reality. This project will see me working closely with former steelworkers and the wider Motherwell and Wishaw community to create a multimedia body of work combining photography, film, oral history recordings, archival material and community engagement. Together, these elements will explore how the closure of Ravenscraig shaped a generation — and how its legacy continues to resonate in daily life.

I’m hugely grateful to Archfringe, to Frank, Hamshya and Amanda for that first introduction to the site — and to Gerry, who has since begun introducing me to a whole web of former workers, community activists and local voices. The connections stretch outward like a spider’s web, and at the centre of it all is Ravenscraig. As I mentioned earlier, everyone in Motherwell has a connection to it. Thirty years on, it seems many people are still ready — and willing — to tell their story.