Public Faces, Private Lives

2014

Today, we are almost completely reliant on our service industry. We live in a service culture, with 92% of women and 72% of men across England and Wales being employed in the service industry as of 2011. The people who serve us have become a part of our day-to-day lives, and we have grown so used to having everything at our fingertips that it can often be taken for granted. Our culture is so fast paced that we barely have time to think about the people we do know, let alone the people we don’t.

After working in the service industry for many years and seeing first hand the difference between working and private identities, an interest in the division between the public face and the private life was formed.

Focused on Teresa Rowley and Purcy Flaherty, two people who hold working positions at The Glebe pub in Stoke-on-Trent, this project documents the personal identities behind the public faces of the service industry, allowing the viewer a glimpse into the lives of those they encounter every day: the private life behind the public face.

This project was also made into a book of the same name which accompanied a panoramic wall piece for the 2014 'Show and Tell' Staffordshire University Degree Show.