Hidden heroes

The above images are a sample from a series commissioned by Museums Northumberland in 2020 for their ‘Hidden Heroes: meet Northumberland’s keyworkers’ exhibition. During the pandemic it was difficult to go a day without hearing or seeing the term ‘key worker’. But not all key workers were mentioned in the media, and thousands of people across the country were keeping society going in a range of roles that weren’t talked about.

As a documentary and socially engaged photographer with a background in ethnographic research, I wanted to get under the skin of these ‘hidden’ keyworkers and make sure their stories were told in their own words. I’ve photographed a wide range of keyworkers living in Northumberland, including those in important roles that haven’t always been visible or publicly recognised.

With this commission, I wanted to build on the Howfen Portraits project model, producing two portraits rather than just one for each subject. The resulting diptychs you can see in the final exhibition show the subjects in both their keyworker role and in their home lives. I wanted to visually communicate this contrast to remind the viewer that there’s a human being behind each hidden hero; that key workers are people like you and me, but who go out every day risking not only their lives, but their families’ lives in order to help others. I wanted to question whether we see the person first, or the keyworker?