The Screen
How to Pickle an AdderLiam Webb
29 June - 06 August 2022
In 1983 when an inquisitive fisherman picked up a rock and threw it up the steeply - shelving beach at Cell Howell, he could never have dreamt that it would send shock waves across three continents.
How to Pickle an Adder is the retracing and reconstruction of Dyfed-Powys Police’s 1983 operation codenamed “Seal Bay”. The operation is the story of one of the largest and most complex drug smuggling conspiracies seen in Britain. The smugglers built a high-tech cavern out of fiberglass under an inaccessible cove in North Pembrokeshire.
Using the smuggling routes that generations have ran centuries before them, the smugglers intended on bringing in 3 tones of cannabis a week into the UK. Unbeknownst the nosiness of the locals were to spoil their plans.
Liam Webb (b. 1996, Carmarthen, Wales) is a Welsh documentary photographer. At the heart of Webb’s practice is a fundamental interest in oral history and contemporary folklore. Webb explores these themes by piecing together collected archival ephemera with his own staged photographs, mixing traditional documentary techniques with more contemporary forms of representation, blending fact and fiction Webb offers the viewer a new and alternative narrative. Webb’s work has been published both in print and online in organisations, such as The British Journal of Photography, Der Greif and Loupe. Webb Holds a BA in Documentary Photography from the University of South Wales (2019) and is currently studying for his MA in Photography at University of the West of England, Bristol (2022).
