Mascots Mirrors And The Faintly Absurd Polly Braden Reveals The Truth Behind Britains Seaside Towns

Creative Boom: News Photography Mist, mirrors and the faintly absurd: Polly Braden reveals the truth behind Britain's seaside towns The most overlooked beat in British photography isn't some far-flung conflict zone; it's the end of your nearest pier. A new exhibition at Bristol's Arnolfini looks behind the cliches and brings you the truth, with the active help of residents. Written By: Tom May 6 July 2026 Cohen, 19, from Grimsby in his Easter bunny costume. Against the Tide, 2026. Photograph by Polly Braden I am proud to be a journalist, but not always proud of my profession.

For example, living in a British coastal town, I've seen how newspaper reports have a habit of swinging between two equally lazy narratives. The narrative is either about decline—boarded-up arcades, fading Victorian grandeur, a town "left behind"—or it flips into regeneration: all artisan coffee and rocketing house prices. Both stories usually have their facts right, technically at least. But the overall picture often feels hopelessly alien to locals, myself included, largely because it's been written from the outside, by someone "looking in" for a fortnight at most.

Polly Braden's new photography exhibition Against the Tide, now open at Arnolfini arts centre in Bristol, does something different. Her aim was to truly get under the skin of British seaside towns by handing some creative control to the residents themselves. Proper research It's all the result of more than a year of in-depth research. Polly and Guardian journalist Lisa Bachelor visited a range of traditional seaside towns, talking to 16- to 25-year-olds about what their lives are actually like. Ceilidh, 21, in Weston-Super-Mare. Against the Tide, 2026. Photograph by Polly Braden Millicent, a 22-year-old fine art graduate from Jaywick.

Against the Tide, 2026. Photograph by Polly Braden Joe, 22 years old, Blackpool. Against the Tide, 2026. Photograph by Polly Braden This is neither the version that ends up in a shiny council regeneration brochure, nor the one in a doom-laden newspaper feature about the "left behind". Instead, we glimpse something closer to the muddled truth. Polly and Lisa didn't feel the need to invent a "hook". They found one simply by asking good questions and sticking around long enough for honest answers.

Unspoken tension The press image leading the exhibition is a gift to any picture editor: a guy in an Easter Bunny costume looking forlorn, on a misty beach in front of an ageing fairground ride. It's funny. It also points to an uncomfortable truth about seaside Britain: that the infrastructure of old-fashioned fun is still standing, even where the old-fashioned fun itself may have packed up and left. That unspoken tension runs through the whole show.

Alongside large-format portraits of youngsters, shot with the kind of clear-eyed dignity Polly has built her career on, there are images of dressing-room mirrors, empty car parks, fairground wheels against bruised skies, piers evoking grandeur through the fog. Charlie, 17, and Keane, 19, both from Eastfield, and Jack, 17, from Scarborough, pictured at Oliver's Mount, overlooking Scarborough. Keane wrote a play as a ‘love letter’ to his home town. Against the Tide, 2026. Photograph by Polly Braden Trinity, 14, Layla, 16, and Maisie, 15, at the Buckland youth activity centre, Portsmouth. Against the Tide, 2026.

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The article discusses a significant exhibition that highlights the role of authentic storytelling and community involvement in brand strategy, making it impactful and relevant, though the concept of collaboration in branding is not entirely new.