World Streets (13)
Mother & Child In Laos
When I first started work as a photo journalist magazine editors would routinely annoy me by cropping my images before publication. All those decades ago I would never have dreamt that I would eventually end up tearing up and collaging different photographs together as well as scribbling and painting on them! The work below developed from four photographs I took of a woman and child in a market in Laos. The powerful subject was caring for her baby as well as selling food on a stall.
I began by printing an image on card and then rapidly over painting it with white acrylic paint. The image was then rephotographed and colour was added digitally. The finished images were then collaged together and the collage was printed on canvas. Finally I over painted different parts of the canvas.
This work involved a lot of experimentation and trial and error; I was never really sure of the direction the work was taking. It was a rewarding organic process that breathed extra life and possibilities into the original photographs.
World Streets (12)
We Dare To Defend Our Rights
Riots are often sparked off by some deep seated social injustice. The Toxteth riots of 1981 emerged during a recession with high unemployment and deep rooted tensions between the local population and the police.
The Merseyside police force at the time had a particularly bad reputation in the area for stopping and searching black youths under the hated ‘sus’ laws. Chief constable Ken Oxford led a police force that regularly arrested and harassed black youth in Toxteth. His astonishing rants at the time speak volumes about the racism that permeated the police force then: “Policemen in general and detectives in particular, are not racialist, despite what many Black groups believe. … Yet they are the first to define the problem of half-castes in Liverpool. Many are the products of liaisons between black seamen and white prostitutes in Liverpool 8, the red-light district. Naturally, they do not grow up with any kind of recognizable home life. Worse still, after they have done the round of homes and institutions, they gradually realize they are nothing.”
The main image in the work below was built around a photograph I took of a demonstration calling for the resignation of the then Chief Constable Ken Oxford. Standing beneath the banner of the ‘Liverpool 8 Defence Committee’ the boy with the placard ‘We dare to defend our rights’ stared dirtectly into the camera. The police behind him were taken from a number of images from a demonstration I covered in 1985 organised by the Newham 7 campaign in East London.
Shortly after the above was photo was taken the police, carrying riot shields, swept the park and expelled everyone. I used one of the images taken shortly after this one for the police behind the boy.
This work will feature in ‘The Art Of Resistance’ summer show (details to follow).
World Streets (11)
