my first photobook - WIP

I’m currently researching and photographing my first photobook, exploring the Arsenic Labyrinth at Botallack Mine, St Just. The Arsenic Labyrinth is a historic network of stone chambers and flues built in 1906 at Botallack Mine. The labyrinth was used to roast tin and copper ore, cool the resulting toxic vapours, and condense white arsenic powder onto the walls, which was then collected and sold as a commercial byproduct.

My work explores the remnants of this industrial past and the traces it has left within the landscape. I’m interested in the relationship between heritage, memory and the complexity of a place that can feel both breathtakingly beautiful and deeply haunting.

The Cornish coast surrounding Botallack is visually extraordinary, yet beneath that beauty is a history of labour, industry, toxicity and extraction. The landscape becomes a kind of archive, where the remains of the mine exist alongside the sea. Standing within the Arsenic Labyrinth feels like entering a time warp - a place where the past hasn’t entirely disappeared, but remains embedded in the landscape.

I’m particularly drawn to the tension between the sublime and the unsettling: the beauty of the Cornish coast against the harsh realities of the industry that once occupied it. The labyrinth is a physical reminder of how deeply human exploitation can become intertwined with a landscape, and how those histories can continue to shape our understanding of a place long after the industry itself has disappeared.

Despite its extraordinary history and location, the Arsenic Labyrinth is not widely known. Through photography, I want to bring attention to this overlooked part of Cornwall’s industrial heritage while creating a more atmospheric and personal interpretation of the site.

The book will explore the Arsenic Labyrinth not simply as a historical structure, but as a space where past and present coexist.