20 - 30 November 2024

Open Wednesday - Saturday 11.00 - 18.00

FREE

During the recent election, questions of childhood poverty, the two-child benefit cap and the rise of inequality surfaced repeatedly. Yet throughout these conversations, the individuals and communities most affected by these political failures remained invisible and unseen. To create The Magic Money Tree, Mackay worked collaboratively with children, young people and families across Bristol, the Midlands and the North-East, to explore the impact of the cost of living crisis and poverty today in the world’s sixth richest economy. 

The work was developed over one year with Mackay returning multiple times to the same families and communities, slowly unpacking the ways in which they wanted to represent their lives. While the work makes visible the structural and material reality of poverty, it also highlights the collective strength of working class communities, avoiding the tired fetishisation that often dominates the British media landscape.  

Among Mackay’s own images are those taken directly by children and young people using film cameras distributed through community workshops. These images often portray the fun of childhood - kids playing in front and with the camera - set against the backdrop of a society reshaped by 14 years of austerity. Elsewhere the images are overtly political, children carrying homemade placards, articulating anger at a country that continues to fail them.