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This photography and Oral History project documents seventeen places in Leicester which have not changed for at least 25 years.

An installation of the work opens for six months at Leicester New Walk Museum as part of the Landscapes exhibition. Saturday March 1st until Sunday October 5th.

Births and deaths are listed in newspaper columns and etched in gravestones and funeral plaques. In between these births and deaths are the places where people go. These are often so familiar they are overlooked. People have memories of these places…
     
Things always change and it's just the time it takes that differs. Places change and the people that go to them grow older. Some get grey hair. The seasons and the clocks change. People come and go. Places come and go. They are built and then knocked down and something else built in their place.
Throughout the world there are places old and new and people go to them. In some ways things continue and survive… places remind us of this…

Maxine, who grew up in Leicester, notices and photographs these places...

Leicester’s motto is "Semper Eadem" which means "always the same". People will always go shopping and will always need to eat...they will want to go out dancing at the weekends...people still choose clothes to wear and cyclists still get punctures...and people will always want sweets...

In parts of Leicester buildings are being knocked down and areas redeveloped. People can be heard talking about their memories of these buildings and others that still survive. These photographs are of places that haven't changed in several decades. They are here and there and people still go to them. They are more difficult to spot than the larger developments in and around the city.
           
These may be familiar places to you or just remind you of a swimming pool you visit or your favourite changing cubicle. They may stir your memories of the smell of freshly cut hair on a Saturday before the football, the chair you sit in waiting for your repeat prescription or the first sip of your pint in your local… it’s entirely up to you…

Steve Baker