The Tate to Show the Largest Photography Archive of the 80s Britain - Mission

The Tate to Show the Largest Photography Archive of the 80s Britain

By Anderson Shao-Wei Hung.

From empowering diasporic communities to documenting decaying urban landscapes to rebelling against socioeconomic inequality, the London Museum will showcase the powerful images of lens-based artists at the forefront of dynamic 1980’s Britain.

This Autumn, London’s Tate Britain will present The 80s: Photographing Britain to spotlight Britain’s political, economic, and social shape shifts of the tumultuous decade through the lens of over 70 photographers and collectives. The archive of 350 images exhibited will be the largest collection ever about the 80s, documenting how a generation of creatives explored themes like cultural identity, social representation, and artistic individualities. 

Thatcher’s Britain was characterized by a realization of social agency — a key sentiment the exhibition and its featured artists capture. John Harris’ work documented the police operations confronting the thousands of miners on strike while Brenda Prince captured their powerful wives fighting alongside. Prince’s all-women photography agency Format Photographers went on to document the Women’s Peace Camp at RAF Greenham Common protesting against nuclear weapons. Willie Doherty and Paul Seawright depoliticized The Troubles and left a valuable record of the civilian losses in Northern Ireland. 

The Tate will also be shedding light on diasporic names that are increasingly being recognised. Ghanaian-Scottish poet Maud Sulter employed imagery as a vehicle of her Black feminist and lesbian activism. British-Indian photographer Mumtaz Karimjee investigated the intersection between South Asian diasporic and queer communities. 

Demographically diversifying urban spaces also prompted other photographers to inquire into the interweaving of identities, like Roy Mehta’s vibrant convergence of Irish and Afro-Caribbean communities in Northwest London, and Vanley Burke’s authentic representation of the arrival of his fellow Afro-Caribbean immigrants. Images were used to combat media misrepresentation and marginalization of immigrants by giving them a voice — think Sutapa Biswas’ reimagination of South Asian cultural narratives and Maxine Walker’s celebration of black Womanhood. 

Radically transforming urban landscapes saw Markéta Luskačová and Don McCullin’s veracious portraits of London’s disappearing East End, Chris Killip’s intimate studies of coal-scavenging families on the northern coast, and John Davies’ post-industrial cityscape in Wales. Tish Murtha was at the forefront of youth unemployment in Newcastle, Anna Fox looked at corporate life in London, and Paul Graham surveyed the British working class in social security offices. On the other hand, Martin Parr pioneered a new genre of satirically anthropological, eccentrically saturated British leisure life. 

Gender and sexual diversity were stigmatized by the AIDs epidemic and Section 28, which prohibited schools and local authorities from promoting homosexuality. Photographers empowered these vulnerable populations. Rotimi Fani-Kayode combated fear with intimate portraits of Black queerness, Sunil Gupta juxtaposed queer couples with the legislative wording of Section 28, and Grace Lau immersed herself in thriving fetish subcultures. 

Moving into the 90s, the exhibition will close with the flourishing of youth counterculture as seen in Ingrid Pollard and Franklyn Rodgers’s loud, underground club scene. The inception of i-D magazine and the birth of the stylist role will open a new era for creative vanguards like Wolfgang Tillmans and Jason Evans to revolutionize fashion photography. 

The exhibition runs from 21 November 2024 – 5 May 2025

Homepage top image Ting A Ling, from Handsworth Self Portraits, 1979 © Derek Bishton, Brian Homer & John Reardon. Courtesy The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Homepage image,David Hoffman, Nidge & Laurence Kissing 1990 © David Hoffman. Inside feature image Paul Trevor, Outside police station, Bethnal Green Road, London E2, 17 July 1978. Sit down protest against police racism. 1978 © Paul Trevor.