Four Corners latest exhibition tells the fascinating story of the Half Moon touring shows. In 1976, photographers at East London’s Half Moon Gallery developed an innovative approach to exhibiting. With little money, a leaky roof and a DIY attitude, they arranged their work on card panels and ran them through a laminator, creating unpretentious exhibitions-in-a-box that travelled the country via British Rail.
Bypassing elitist arts institutions, the exhibitions toured to alternative venues from community centres to left-wing bookshops, student unions, churches, a prison and even a laundrette. By 1984, over fifty shows had reached people across the UK, playing a pivotal role in how documentary photography was viewed and used.
Documenting working lives and rural traditions, shedding light on international conflicts and injustices closer to home, the Half Moon touring shows introduced powerful imagery by an emerging generation of socially engaged photographers that still resonates today.
Photography on the Move: The Half Moon Touring Shows 1976 - 1984
24 November 2023 - 27 January 2024
London: Four Corners
https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/photography-on-the-move-the-half-moon-touring-shows-1976-1984
Comments
One of the many exhibitions Half Moon produced and toured was an 1981 exhibition by disabled photographers titled "No Access" which was paired with or included a very intimate and moving sub-exhibition by the quadriplegiac photographer Julie Mimack (whose rather un-Half Moon-like work also was later published in a book of writings by women with diabilitites and in an issue of Spare Rib, both of which I lost in a house fire and have been unable to access on line). I spent six months in '81 as director of Yr Oriel Ffotograffeg in Cardiff attempting to get permission from Half Moon to exhibit the Mimack work, finally arranging in late 1981 to aquire it for two weeks directly from one of the exhibiting institutions (a Midlands library, I believe). When I finally obtained contact info for Julie intending to bring her down to speak about her work and its purpose, her mother answered the phone and, after a long silence, told me Julie had taken her own life just two weeks earlier, feeling that that the extraordinary effort to make the photographs and get them out and seen was not making any difference to anyone – she just gave up. I presented the work in Cardiff feeling enormous respect for Julie's undertaking but also sadness and anger in my heart that it had been so difficult and taken so long to make the exhibition happen and so had not contacted Julie sooner. It still affect me. I'd like to hear from anyone who was involved in that exhibition or knew Julie to fill me in more about her and how she came to be part of the "No Access" exhibition, despite seeming to elicit little enthusiasm or support at Half Moon (it's not even on the exhibition's poster, which has two photographs). I had the feeling that they were embaressed by her work as too personal or subjective, but I'd like to learn a fuller story.
Hello William,
This is an incredibly sad story. Thank you for letting us know about it.
We are in the process of trying to research and document the history of the touring shows, many of which have disappeared. Unfortunately there is nothing in our archive about Julie Mimack's exhibition, apart from the poster and two listings in Camerawork's annual report. Do get in touch, and let's see if we can find out more.
Very best, Carla
Will do.
Julie Mimmack's (double m's) part of Half Moon's touring exhibition No Access may have been titled "The Cage is Fixed." She had an article in issue 86 of Spare Rib in 1979 (pp14-15) about "Physical Relationships and the Disabled Woman" (presently inaccessible on the British Library's site) and also a postumous chapter in a book by women with disbilities which I've been unable to locate or even find a title for. Julie died in August 1981 at the age of 26.
From the BJP in 1981.