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Abstract
In the absence of photographic galleries in Britain in the early 1970s, aspiring documentary photographers turned to ordinary places to show their work, transforming launderettes, buses, canteens and community spaces into temporary galleries. This generation of photographers renewed social documentary in self-initiated projects driven by a sense of social change and a desire to create alternative approaches to photographic representation. Nick Hedges produced exhibitions in the canteens of factories where he had spent time photographing the workers. Daniel Meadows converted a double-decker bus, into a mobile darkroom and exhibition space, travelling across England and Wales. Meanwhile, Paul Trevor used a launderette in Brick Lane, London, to show his work done locally. Active in the neighboring borough of Hackney, the feminist collective the Hackney Flashers had their first exhibition “Women and Work” in the local town hall and in community centers. More than pragmatic initiatives, these resourceful exhibition practices challenged the elitism of high art institutions, while reinforcing the photographers’ engagement with a renewed documentary ethos, combining personal expression and a commitment to specific communities and their cultures. The history of these unusual exhibitions highlights currents of change in British photography, rooted in the cultural politics of the period.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Nick Hedges and Paul Trevor for their generous time in sharing their memories and commenting on the drafts of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Paul Trevor makes a passing reference to it in his interview with Val Williams for the Oral History of British Photography (Trevor Citation1991). Noni Stacey refers to exhibitions in laundrettes twice without pointing to actual examples: “The collectives exhibited radicality in their working methods […] creating new spaces and modes of display on housing estates, in the street and in community facilities such as laundrettes – thus inviting collaboration through comment and debate” (Trevor Citation2022, 12); and in reference to the use of tape-slide shows “in different spaces, such as community centres, schools, trade unions, halls and laundrettes” (24). One of Stacey’s interviewees, Ron McCormick, refers to his “E1 Festival” exhibition being shown “in a swimming pool and in a launderette, to attract publicity for the festival” (76) but this instance is not dwelt upon.
2 A specific committee dedicated to photography at the Arts Council of Great Britain was created in 1973. Barry Lane, full-time photography officer, was able to launch a programme of exhibitions, acquisitions and grants to photography projects. Barry Lane, Interview with Shirley Read, Oral History of British Photography, British Library Sound Archive, December 1999, C459/113.
3 The Photographers’ Gallery was created in London in January 1971 by Sue Davies; the Half Moon Gallery, founded by Wendy Ewald in London’s East End, opened in 1972, and Impressions Gallery, created by Val Williams and Andrew Sproxton opened in 1973 in York. Women were therefore prominent in creating spaces for photography, in the context of a male-dominated professional milieu at the time.
4 For example, Paul Carter received a grant from Kodak which exceeded the bursary he obtained from the Arts Council of Great Britain for the Photography Project he led at the Blackfriars Settlement (Bertrand Citation2021).
5 The Hayward Gallery hosted The Land, a show of Bill Brandt’s work in 1970. The Victoria and Albert Museum had a show of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work in 1969, then Cecil Beaton in 1971, Roger Fenton in 1973 and Brassaï in 1975. See Elizabeth James. Citation1998. The Victoria and Albert Museum. A bibliography and Exhibition Chronology, 1952-1998. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. The Institute for Contemporary Arts also had occasional photographic exhibitions.
6 Williams also describes the “fragility and tentativeness of the new British photography” (Williams Citation2011, 15).
7 Hedges recalls “there were one or two good freelance photographers as part time lecturers who came to teach and introduce you to what photojournalism might be” (Hedges, pers. comm. July 2010). See also May McWilliams. 2009.
8 See Camerawork, 1978. “Born to Work”, 10, July, 5.
9 Earned as a beach photographer at a Butlin’s camp with Martin Parr. See Williams Citation2004, 32.
10 Meadows was among the first recipients of the Arts Council grants for photography projects created in 1973, later published in British Image 1, Arts Council of Great Britain (Citation1975). The book cover is a portrait made by Meadows. Besides Meadows’, the book gathered the work of Homer Sykes, Claire Schwob, John Myers, Bryn Campbell, Roslyn Banish, Ian Dobbie, Ian and Paul Carter.
11 Buses seem to have been very much in use among community arts groups: Chats Palace, Inter-Action, the Islington Bus Company in London, Jubilee Arts and Trinity Arts in the West Midlands all had their own buses used as multifunctional mobile resources for arts and drama activities.
12 Besides Ron McCormick, who left London around 1973, Trevor mentions Tom Picton, Mike Goldwater, Julia Meadows, George Solomonides, Ed Barber, Jenny Matthews, Terry Dennett and Jo Spence. (Trevor, pers. comm. September 2023).
13 The Exit Photography Group originally comprised Paul Trevor, Nicholas Battye, Diane Olson and Alex Slotzkin 2021, 70-71).
14 The laundrette is now a restaurant. The panels still exist, stored in Trevor’s personal archive, awaiting digitisation and publication in book form. After 1976, Trevor documented the rise of racist attacks and the organised resistance put by the Bengali community in the East End. His exhibition “Brick Lane Under Attack 1978” was widely circulated by the Half Moon Photography Workshop from 1978, and appeared as a feature in Camerawork, 13, March 1979, p 8-10. Four Corners Gallery restaged the exhibition with the support of a National Heritage Lottery Fund and the Swadhinata Fund under the name “Brick Lane 1978: The Turning Point”, from June to September 2022. The exhibition was accompanied by events celebrating the political resistance of the Bengali community to far right attacks.
15 The two organisations merged into one in 1975 and from then on went by the name Half Moon Photography Workshop. See Bertrand Citation2018.
16 This was certainly the case for the collective exhibition “Women on Women”, shown at the very young Half Moon Gallery in May 1972 and gathering work by Dorothy Bohm, Fay Godwin, Sally Greenhill, Diane Hank Olson, Julia Meadows, Maggie Murray, Angela Phillips, Claire Schwob, Tony Tye-Walker and Val Wilmer. “[It was] the beginning of our involvement in the women’s movement. It felt necessary to work as a group at this stage.” Val Wilmer, interview with Michael-Ann Mullen, 12th October Citation1993, Oral History of British Photography, C459/46.
17 The laminated process refined by Half Moon Photography Workshop was copied by other organisations such as Cockpit Arts in London, active in the 1980s, and which acted as a youth centre around photographic projects. (Dewdney Citation2000).
18 Encouraging alternative and low-cost technology in photographic image-making and the production of exhibitions or tape-slide shows was central to the values of the Photography Workshop, founded by Terry Dennett and Jo Spence in 1974. In 1975, they produced “The Home Made Show – photographs made with old and home-made cameras”, with the South Island Children Workshop in Islington using old boots (among other things) as pinhole cameras. See Terry Dennett and Jo Spence. Citation1983. “Ten years of Photography Workshop” in S. Bezencenet, P. Corrigan, Photographic Practices: Towards a Different Image. London: Comedia, 16.
19 To Williams, “a niche was carved for photography in the early 1970s which still exists today: a network of galleries, a thriving system of photographic education and a recognition of photography as art practice.” (Williams Citation2011, 15).
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Mathilde Bertrand
Dr Mathilde Bertrand is Assistant Professor in British Studies and Visual Arts at the Université Bordeaux-Montaigne. In her PhD, she examined the structuration and role of politically radical photography collectives in the shaping of British independent photography from the late 1950s to the late 1980s. Her research topics explore the uses of photography in activism in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, the history of the British community arts movement, and cultural policy in the UK. She co-edited the collective volume Photography as Collaboration: New Paradigms in Contemporary Practices (Palgrave Springer, 2024).