Juliet Klottrup
Photographer and film maker Juliet Klottrup grew up ‘down South’ but spent her childhood holidays scampering around the Lakes. She fell in love with the Dales when she moved to the area, aged 18.
Juliet’s parents, originally from the north, relocated to the Ingleton area and she immediately felt inspired by the uniqueness of the Dales, captivated by how parts of the landscape have been untouched for generations and some routines unchanged.
This formed the basis for ‘Youth of the Rural North’, a poetic documentary portraiture project working with analogue mediums to record portraits and voices from local young people. Juliet was funded by GPLD to make the film.
She said: “The foundations of this project have evolved from work that began at university. After the death of my older brother I felt a sudden shift as though I’d prematurely departed youth or lost a sense of what It meant to be young and carefree.
This started a body of work documenting teenagers, youth culture and capturing what it means to be young today.
“Having not spent my early youth growing up here I had no predetermined opinions that would skew my findings, I have been able to document and record truthfully.
“I’ve met so many inspiring local young people since starting the project who have rekindled my appreciation and adoration for our surrounding area. It has been a wonderful experience.”
Juliet’s work takes her all over the country, but she is determined to retain her Dales base.
She said: “When I’m here I feel less distracted and less pressured. There’s something really freeing about being immersed in vast open natural landscapes and seeing big horizons. I crave the rugged landscape when I’m away from it.
“It’s the dream to be funded to make self-initiated work on my doorstep and get involved with my community. It’s really given me a fresh perspective on the area, I am passionate on recording/ documenting and almost preserving local stories from other people who live here in the rural north.”
