Cameron Judith Peters
Photo Editor and Visual Storyteller
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In Ottery St Mary, generations of local residents carry flaming tar barrels through the streets in a centuries-old Bonfire Night tradition.
Each November, men, women, and children race through the streets of Ottery St Mary in southwest England carrying flaming tar barrels on their shoulders. The centuries-old tradition commemorates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, a 1605 conspiracy to destroy the Houses of Parliament. As many as twenty thousand spectators descend on the town for Bonfire Night, but only members of the local community may carry the barrels. This project documents how fire, ritual, and belonging are passed from one generation to the next.