Opening at Four Corners Gallery this October, A World Apart captures a unique moment of change in London’s East End. As the docks closed, and wholesale slum clearance replaced old neighbourhoods, many communities were being transformed beyond recognition. Yet a different East End was also coming into being, as recent migrant communities created a space for themselves.
A new generation of photographers were drawn to document ordinary people’s lives and give visibility to working-class experience. They showed their photographs in everyday spaces where local people could view images of themselves and their own communities.
Brought together for the first time, these rarely seen photographs document a now-disappeared world. Bengali migrants live side-by-side with elderly Jewish shopkeepers and artisans, dockers socialise in Wapping’s clubs and pubs, neighbours and children celebrate at a raucous, multicultural Stepney festival.
A World Apart features remarkable photographs by Ron McCormick and Exit Photography group - Nicholas Battye, Diane Bush, Alex Slotzkin, and Paul Trevor - alongside work by Ian Berry, John Donat, David Hoffman, Jessie Ann Matthews, Dennis Morris, Val Perrin, and Ray Rising.
A World Apart. Photographing Change in London's East End, 1970-76
24 October-6 December 2025
Four Corners, London
https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/a-world-apart-photographing-change-in-londons-east-end-1970-76
Image credit: Child playing in a tenement block courtyard, Whitechapel or Wapping, around 1972. © David Hoffman
Comments