The 50th anniversary of Daniel Meadows’ Free Photographic Omnibus and Charlie Phillips’s 50-year work on Afro Caribbean funerals in London will be the two lead exhibitions considering communities opening at the Centre for British Photography on Thursday 5 October. Community-focussed work of three other photographers will also be on show: Grace Lau’s Chinese portrait studio; Dorothy Bohm’s photographs of London street markets; and Arpita Shah’s portraits of young British Asian women.
James Hyman, Founding Director of the Centre for British Photography, said: “Building a community around photography in Britain is central to our aims and I am delighted that our autumn exhibitions present a range of voices, across generations, to celebrate different communities. I am also pleased that as well as curating our own shows, we are again providing a London venue for exhibitions and bodies of work that that would not otherwise reach this audience.”
The exhibitions are:
Charlie Phillips - How Great Thou Art, 50 Years of African Caribbean Funerals in London
Charlie Phillips’ How Great Thou Art - 50 Years of African Caribbean Funerals in London is a sensitive photographic documentary of the social and emotional traditions that surround death in London’s African Caribbean community. This will be the first time that the Centre for British Photography’s main space will present a solo exhibition.
Daniel Meadows - Free Photographic Omnibus, 50th Anniversary
On 22 September 1973, Daniel Meadows set off on a long-planned adventure in a rickety 1948 double-decker bus that he had repurposed as his home, gallery and darkroom. He was intent on making a portrait of England. He was 21 years old.
Over the next 14 months, travelling alone, Meadows crisscrossed the country covering 10,000 miles. He photographed 958 people, in 22 towns and cities. From circus performers to day trippers. He developed and printed the photographs as he went along, giving them away for free to those who posed for him.
This exhibition will feature dozens of photographs, including loans from The Hyman Collection, as well as previously unseen works of documentary reportage that Meadows made during his travels.
Dorothy Bohm - London Street Markets
London’s street markets and especially the people who worked there were an important aspect of Bohm’s engagement with London. Having run a successful portrait studio in Manchester in the late 1940s and 1950s, it was only in the 60s and 70s, after she settled in London, that Bohm turned her lens on the city that remained her home until her death earlier this year. The markets she depicted include the old Covent Garden fruit and vegetable market, Smithfield, Billingsgate, Petticoat Lane, Portobello Road, Farringdon Road book market, as well as stalls in Camden Town and Hampstead.
The exhibition will be made up of familiar and unfamiliar works.
Grace Lau – Portraits In a Chinese Studio
Grace Lau’s Chinese portrait studio is not just an entertaining pop-up studio but also addresses issues around Imperialism by inverting Western notions of the Chinese as an exotic ‘other’. The studio will be set up in the Mezzanine Gallery at the Centre for British Photography and visitors will be able to book a spot to pose for the camera at times throughout the exhibition’s run. Portraits from two previous incarnations of the studio will surround the studio.
The first photographic portrait studios in China were set up in the mid-19th century by Western travellers, and focused on ‘exotic’ subjects such as beggars, opium smokers, coolies and courtesans. Many of these images were reproduced as postcards to send back to amuse a European audience. In 2005, Lau created her own version of an old Chinese portrait studio in which she would document the residents and tourists to Hastings as ‘exotic’ subjects.
Arpita Shah – Modern Muse
Drawing from and subverting the conventions of Mughal and Indian miniature paintings from ancient to pre-colonial times, Arpita Shah’s Modern Muse visually and conceptually explores the ever-shifting identities and representations of South Asian women in contemporary Britain. The portraits give an insight into the perspectives of what it means to be a young British and Asian woman. Shah examines the intersections of culture and identity, drawing on the women’s lived experiences and her own journey and life. Commissioned by GRAIN projects, this body of work has not been shown in London before.
Centre for British Photography
London, Jermyn Street
5 October – 17 December 2023
Free entry
See: www.britishphotography.org
Comments