The Shore Between Two Rivers

The photographs here are inspired by the writing of Gaston Bachelard, who described the sea as a manifestation and a presence of material imagination. The Flyde Coast, in the north west of England, is a 13-mile coastal plain situated between the River Wyre to the north and the River Ribble to the south. To those who gravitate here – from young hopefuls to the newly retired – the sea and its shoreline act as a poetic mirror: an ocean of real or imagined possibilities.

Extended Caption

In The Shore Between Two Rivers, John Harrison has photographed the Fylde Coast, a 13-mile strip of Lancashire’s northwest shoreline cradled between the River Wyre to the north and the River Ribble to the south. Inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s notion of the sea as a place of ‘material imagination’, this series captures an edge of land where rivers meet the sea, and where the shore becomes a mirror for hope and reflection. The photographs explore the Fylde Coast’s rhythms: identities of day-trippers and seasonal workers, architectures of entertainment and sea defences, and the seaside as a retreat for new beginnings or for drawn-out ends. Set against Lancashire’s evolving economic and civic landscape – where municipal regeneration plans intend to redefine the future – Harrison’s photographs are elegiac, anchoring the viewer within an evocative and liminal geography.

Notes

The photographs from The Shore Between Two Rivers were made on Lancashire’s Flyde Coast from 2024 onwards. By the new year of 2026, the municipality of Blackpool was advancing a £2 billion regeneration agenda, headlined by a £131 million capital investment plan and a dual bid for UK Town of Culture 2028 and City of Culture 2029.

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