The Jones Family

The effects of the economic crisis and austerity measures began to hit Europe hard in 2010. In response, I began collaborating with the Jones family to document the experience of deprivation running through generations, within a wealthy country. Together we made their first family album. When I met the Jones family, the two parents and seven children lived together in a three-bedroom council house in the industrial heartland of the West Midlands, UK. This was the first house that the family had lived in for three generations and, despite it being very small for nine people, family memories kept them from moving into larger council accommodation. The Jones’ eldest son – the first ever in his family to go to university – set up his own animation business from his bedroom, which he shared with two brothers. The eldest daughter was the first to move out when, at age 21, she met Adrian in the local playground and fell in love. Their son was born in August, 2012. The project, which includes the family’s photographs as well as my own, began as a brief commission with the charity Save the Children and was later generously supported by a Getty Image grant.