Black Country Lungs

Black Country Lungs is a collaborative photography project by Dutch photographer Corinne Noordenbos and people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Corinne has a long standing interest in exploring the human condition by photographing health issues, often with a personal starting point - her Alzheimer’s series was made after her mother was diagnosed with the disease. For her first UK commission, Corinne worked with Multistory for a two year period (June 2015 - May 2017) researching, observing, recording, meeting and photographing people in hospital and at home.

“Black Country Lungs tells, in striking images and short words, the stories of 20 Black Country folk who have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). It is a courageous and honest collaboration between artist and subjects that conveys the personal histories of the people behind the statistics.

The Black Country is part of the West Midlands of England where the Industrial Revolution really took hold over 200 years ago. Famously, the area was described as ‘black by day and red by night.’ Thousands of furnaces burned coal, fluxed with limestone, to forge iron, creating a soup of industrial poisons inhaled by workers and inhabitants every day.

Cigarette smoke came into fashion in the late 19th century and rapidly became the norm, certainly for working men. As air pollution due to industry has declined, we have become more aware of air pollution caused by cars. Many areas of Sandwell still fail to meet EU standards for clean air. We are only beginning to fully appreciate the compounding effect of vehicle pollution on lung health - from womb to tomb.”

- John Middleton, President, UK Faculty of Public Health.