Author
➔ Leave to Remain, A Snapshot of Brexit (Lund Humphries, 2023)
➔ Photography of Protest and Community: The Radical Collectives of the 1970s (2020)
Academia
Research
➔ PhD, Community Photography: Radicalism and a Culture of Protest in the London-based Photography Collectives of the 1970s, UAL London
➔ MA History and Theory of Photography, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London
Leave to Remain
A Snapshot of Brexit
Available at Lund Humphries
Cover photo: © Led By Donkeys
Art and photography have played a key role in capturing and reflecting on the conditions for the Brexit referendum. Illustrated by a range of work by artists including Cornelia Parker, Wolfgang Tillmans, David Shrigley, Tacita Dean and Jeremy Deller as well as the satirists Cold War Steve and Led By Donkeys, who offer fascinating insights into their work, along with ephemera such as campaign posters and leaflets, and more personal photographs which capture the searing impact of the vote on both UK and EU citizens, this impassioned and compelling book explores the role of the photograph and sometimes moving image in the ongoing consequences of what the author views as a political cataclysm.
Book preview
Photography of Protest and Community
The Radical Collectives of the 1970s
Available at Lund Humphries
During the 1970s, London-based photographers joined together to form collectives which engaged with local and international political protest in cities across the UK. The photographers derived inspiration from counterculture while finding new ways to produce, publish and exhibit their work. They wanted to do things in their own way, to create their own magazines and exhibition networks, and to take their politicised photographic and textual commentary on the re-imagination of British cities in the post-war period into community centres, laundrettes, Working Men’s Clubs, polytechnics, nurseries – anywhere that would have them. Through archival research, interviews and newly discovered photographic and ephemeral material, this book tells the story of the Hackney Flashers Collective, Exit Photography Group, Half Moon Photography Workshop, producers of Camerawork magazine, and the community darkrooms, North Paddington Community Darkroom and Blackfriars Photography Project.
Reviews
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“Stacey’s research is outstanding… she has marshalled this information into an intriguing account of an exciting, idealistic, and sometimes fractious period.” Diane Smyth, Photomonitor.
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“It is both an enlightening history of this period and a critical reference book for the present. Indeed, although the advent of social media has reshaped the visual landscape, the strategies employed by the collectives still resonate on a theoretical and practical level today.” British Journal of Photography.
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“Stacey's book includes copious illustrations of placards, posters, scrapbooks & more... For those interested in the social and intellectual history of the community photography movement, this is a satisfying & illuminating volume.” Source magazine.
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“In her luminous and sharply-written account of the rise of photography as a genre of engagement nd social activism in 1970s London, Noni Stacey describes the creative initiatives that forged ‘the enmeshment of photography and protest’ and took the ‘quantum of truth’, which our ‘Race & Class’ confrere John Berger told us is what a photograph records, into the heart of the struggles of the era against oppression, racism and class subjugation.” Race & Class Journal
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Stacey’s visual engaging case studies effectively demonstrate the significance of the photography collectives’ engagement with politics, representation and social change happening outside of the mainstream media.” Journal of British Studies
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Review of ‘Photography of Protest and Community’ by Lillian Wilkie, C4 Journal, 2021.
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“Shining a light on an era of dissident art making, historian Noni Stacey collates first-hand interviews, newly discovered images and archival material to chart the influence and impact of London’s radical collectives. This comprehensive book pieces together the legacies of these grassroots organisations, which seems every more pertinent at a time when support for the arts is increasingly under threat.” Louis Benson, ‘The Essential Art Books of 2020’, Elephant Magazine.
Public engagement
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Seminar organised by Ann Curran (TU Dublin), Fiona Loughnane (National College of Art & Design, Dublin), and Dr Orla Fitzpatrick (National Museum of Ireland), revisiting the photobook Women in Focus: Contemporary Irish Women’s Lives (1987) on the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication by Attic, an Irish feminist press.
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Radical Photography, Urban Change: the Exit Group in LSE Archives – In conversation with Indy Bhullar, LSE Library, London. Watch here.
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Author Interview: Q+A with Dr Rosemary Deller on Photography of Protest and Community: The Radical Collectives of the 1970s, for LSE Review of Books.
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‘Photography of Protest and Community: The Radical Collectives of the 1970s’ Book Launch, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow. Watch here.
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Convenor of panel on ‘Community Photography, Then and Now’, for the conference, ‘Radical Histories: Histories of Radicalism’, Queen Mary University, London, 2016.
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‘Photography for the Community: How the London-based Photography Collectives of the 1970s Showed Different Ways of Seeing’, conference paper, Counterculture and its Legacies, 1966-77, Royal College of Art, London, 2014
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‘Different Ways of Seeing: Camerawork in Northern Ireland in the 1970s’, conference paper, War in the Visual Arts, University College Cork, Ireland, 2013.