The legacy of Black women photographers in 80s and 90s Britain

Shining Lights: Black Women Photographers in 1980s-90s Britain brings together work by an “important and long-overlooked generation of artists”, says editor Joy Gregory. By highlighting the practices of these 57 photographers, many of whom are now in their 60s and 70s, Gregory hopes to give due recognition to an important chapter in the history of photography while helping others today to feel “empowered to pursue their dreams”.

 

The book is split into themed chapters filled with portfolios on individual photographers, testimonies, essays, and ‘roundtable discussions’. Its pluralistic approach was purposefully devised, with Gregory and associate editor Taous Dahmani striving to make the book a work of collaboration that truthfully reflected the photographers’ perspectives.

 

“As Black women we have constantly endured other people telling our stories or explaining to us what we mean. Voice is an essential aspect of this book, because for decades we have not been heard,” Gregory writes.

 

Among the book’s 57 featured photographers is Gregory herself, whose contribution to this period is relayed in the foreword written by fellow artist Sonia Boyce. The two met at the opening of the very first exhibition held by Autograph – also co-publisher of the book – in 1990. “Her relation to the camera – the mechanical eye –seemed to reflect surveillance, self-fashioning, and poetry,” Boyce writes.