Deeds Not Words is an experimental documentary and an urgent intervention.

 For 18 months Mark Neville photographed the town of Corby in Northamptonshire: its people, its culture and the effects of environmental pollution that led to several babies being born with serious birth defects.

Neville followed The Corby 16 as they fought, successfully, to indict the local council for negligent disposal of waste from the town’s steel mills, which had closed in the 1980s. In 2011 Neville produced a book comprised of his photographs, scientific findings and a summary of the case. This was not for sale, but was sent to each of the 433 local authorities in the UK and to environmental agencies internationally, to raise awareness of issues around the handling of toxic waste and the reuse of contaminated land. The photographs present the community as a whole, not simply the families at the centre of the case. They show the persisting Scottish identity in the English town, even amongst third and fourth generation families, and various manifestations of beauty: young women at nightclubs, entrants in a beauty contest, children dressed for the town’s Highland Games.

It’s a story of industrial growth and decline, regeneration and solidarity.

Two boys involved in the court case, George Taylor and Ben Vissian, both born with fingers missing, are featured, surrounded by other members of their community whose lives have been shaped by some of the same socio-economic factors.

2 August - 29 September 2013