From ambition and creativity to isolation and inequality, explore intimate photographs and first-hand accounts documenting what life is really like for young people growing up in coastal Britain.

Documentary photographer Polly Braden and journalist Lisa Bachelor spent more than a year travelling to coastal communities across England, working closely with young people aged 16–25 using photographs, film and personal stories to explore their lives.

Created as part of The Guardian’s Seascape series, Against the Tide looks beyond the negative portrayals to reveal a more complicated picture of coastal Britain today.

Across Tendring, Weston-super-Mare, Scarborough, Grimsby, Southend, Portsmouth, Whitehaven, Rhyl and Blackpool, Polly’s photographs bring us into the lives of a generation growing up in some of the most deprived and often forgotten places across England.

Alongside accounts of isolation and lack of opportunity are expressions of resilience, ambition and hope, and a clear message: coastal towns are not just sites of decline, but places of creativity and possibility.

Young people involved in this exhibition have created their own photographs, exchanged ideas with peers and shared their experiences with UK policymakers, showing how creativity and personal stories together can help inform decisions about coastal communities beyond words and numbers.