I’ve been pre-occupied with the final stages of sorting out my 45 year old archive… in some ways it’s hard to let go of the negatives, prints and research of the long term projects, but over all it is liberating and great to know it will be in good hands. It’s being catalogued at the Bishopsgate Institute, thanks to archivist Colleen Goldspink, and we plan to mark the launch with an event late in 2026.
Meanwhile I have been pursuing my new landscape project in East Anglia this spring, cycling the bridleways and footpaths with my camera in the pannier (with ongoing back issues, that’s the easiest way for me to carry it…). More on this soon!
On another note, I’ve been shocked and very saddened by the untimely death of Fi in late December, at the age of 55. I had first met Fi in Dorset in January 1988, and photographed her (see image below) for Mothers’ Pride, my text/image piece on teenage mothers. This work was recently exhibited again at Tate Britain; the image of Fi and her son were part of the Tate’s Women in Revolt’s tour to National Galleries Scotland and to the Whitworth gallery in Manchester. I last saw Fi in 2023, and we had started discussing a collaborative project about her life, using my photographs and her text, drawn from emails she had sent me over the past 36 years. Fi was a keen, skilled photographer & interviewer and a published writer. Recently she also befriended and supported asylum seekers housed on the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset.
Fi with her son Dominic, Weymouth, Dorset, 1988
China 1986 (Café Royal Books, to be published on 18 October) has just been featured in Observer New Review/The Guardian:
I’ve started making new work in East Anglia. And I’ve been busy preparing two Café Royal books for publication. And I’ve been interviewed at length about The Plain. All good stuff. More details soon…!
I’ve had very memorable times at Tate Britain, meeting up with the women from Dorset and London I photographed for my 1988 image + text series Mothers’ Pride, which is currently on show in the groundbreaking show Women in Revolt! curated by Linsey Young (see November 2023 post for more info). See image of the Mothers’ Pride series on the wall below (Room 6 at the Tate). I am really proud it is included in this show (alongside Greenham images from Format Photographers, see November post).
It’s been an extraordinary time these past two years, reconnecting with the women from Mothers’ Pride to ensure they were happy that their portrait and interview texts were in this show. Some names have been concealed; the work was made originally for very small audiences, well before the arrival of social media, etc.
I’m very delighted that The Hyman Collection have acquired two of my prints from my 2020 series The Plain which were shown recently in the Centre for British Photography’s show Landscape Trauma (see below).
Really enjoyed my visit to MPF in Bristol on 5 December, when I did a talk to coincide with the MPF acquiring prints from my series The Home Front!
Great to meet all the team and the Bristol audience. I had excellent questions from the audience after my talk and very interesting chats with photographers during the book signings…
It’s been a very exciting last few weeks, with the opening of the Women in Revolt! exhibition at the Tate Britain (Women in Revolt! at Tate Britain) and the display of large prints by Format Photographers (Second Sight: Format Photographers, 1983-2003) in the public concourse at the Barbican Centre (which runs till 14 January), and a large body of work on Greenham peace protests in the Re/Sisters Barbican exhibition (Re/Sisters exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery) .
The photographs below of one of the Re/Sisters gallery spaces with a distant view of the Format display of Greenham peace camp photographs (on the back wall) are courtesy of Max Colson/Barbican (© Max Colson). (I took the close-up). Very happy that three of my early 1980s Greenham photographs have been included here.
On the top level of the Second Sight Format display at Barbican foyer below, is a photograph I took of ambulance women at work at a road traffic accident in Holborn, 1989 (I had spent two days with this team, riding in the ambulance, documenting their work) ; at the lower level, is a photograph I took in St. Martin’s Lane very close to the poll tax riots in Trafalgar Square of 31 March 1990. Tourists who had been shopping at HMV in Oxford Street arrived at this scene to find a car on fire in the background.
The remaining images pictured here are by Format photographers Brenda Prince and Maggie Murray.
The second and third photos of the Format installation Second Sight below are courtesy of Jackson Pearce White/Barbican (© Jackson Pearce White).
The Tate Britain show: Format has a large number of protest photographs (including two of mine from Greenham Common early 1980s in the image below (thanks to Maggie Murray for the pic), and an anti-racist protest in Glasgow) included in the Tate show.
I also have a 1988 image & text series I made on teenage mothers (Mothers’ Pride) on show in the last room of the exhibition. This was actually my final creative project for my BA Photography (1984-88, part time) which was in my degree show at the Polytechnic of Central London. It’s incredible that it is now on show in the Tate; it was last shown in 1990, I think, at the Cambridge Darkroom and at Bath F-Stop Gallery, following its inclusion in the 1988 Spectrum Women’s Photography Festival. On 7 November, at the Tate Britain opening, it was a very moving experience, as three of the London women were able to come to the opening and see their younger selves on the wall. It’s been an extraordinary past 18 months re-connecting with the 8 women I had photographed back in 1988, all now in their 50s. The Tate show is on until 7 April 2024.
It’s great to see three new titles from Café Royal Books of work by Format Photographers, including a solo publication by Brenda Prince. The images in the other two titles are a selection of work from the Format Photographers Agency collection in the Bishopsgate Institute archives.
Link here: Café Royal Books by Format Photographers
On the front cover of Women, Work and Equality 1975-95 is a photograph I took of a London ambulance crew at work in 1989. I remember that assignment very well; a freelance journalist and I spent two full days with the ambulance crew (with the permission of the management and the union), to highlight their crucial work. In late 1989 and 1990 ambulance workers were intermittently on strike in a dispute over pay. The image shows a man on the ground who had been injured during a traffic accident. (I took the photograph after a conversation with his friend and the crew, after being assured that his injuries were not critical, and his life was not in danger). The photograph was published as part of a feature in the Independent Saturday magazine, and also used by the unions on some of their protest placards.
I’m also very happy to have three of my photographs reproduced in the Format Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp 1982–85 book.
In connection with Format’s work at Greenham Common, and the display of work by Format in the current Barbican show Re/Sisters (curated by Alona Pardo), I am joining Format members Maggie Murray and Joanne O’Brien for a discussion chaired by Dr. Noni Stacey at the Barbican on 26 October. This is part of an afternoon and evening of talks, as part of the Re/Sisters talks programme Joyful Militancy and Protest:
Joyful Militancy and Protest talks, 26 October, Barbican
Melanie Friend on left, Dr. Pippa Oldfield, centre, at the Centre for British Photography 19 September 2023, photo © Maggie Murray.
20 September: Photo from the ‘in conversation’ event last night at the Centre for British Photography, with thanks to Maggie Murray who took the pic. Many thanks to CBP for the invitation, and to all those who attended for all the excellent questions in the Q&A…
12 September: I’m ‘in conversation’ next week at London’s Centre for British Photography, with Dr. Pippa Oldfield, photography curator & author of Photography and War (Reaction Books, 2019). Pippa is the former Head of Programme at Impressions Gallery and is currently Senior Lecturer in Photography at Teeside University. Looking forward to seeing Pippa again, and the CBP team … and to meeting other photographers - and whoever else might be there! It’s 6-8pm, booking details and info here:
Centre for British Photography, Events page
This autumn Format Photography Agency’s work on the peace movement and the 1980s protests at RAF Greenham Common (including some of my photographs), will be shown in two large London group exhibitions: Re/Sisters: A Lens on Gender and Ecology at the Barbican (5 October 2023 through to 14 January 2024) and Women in Revolt! Art, Activism and the Women’s movement in the UK 1970–1990 at the Tate Britain (8 November 2023 to 7 April 2024). It’s been such an amazing time working with the curators, with Format and with the Bishopsgate Institute (which holds the Format archive) during this past year.
I’m also very excited to be showing my 1988 image and text work Mothers’ Pride, as part of the Tate Britain show; this piece of work hasn’t been shown for well over three decades and was originally my final year project for my BA photography at the Polytechnic of Central London! more soon on this ...
More info here
Re/Sisters at the Barbican Art Gallery, London
Women in Revolt! at Tate Britain
I’m very excited that images from two of my works (The Plain and Border Country) have been included in the new Landscape Trauma show, curated by James Hyman. This is one of several exhibitions opening at the Centre for British Photography on 8 June and running till 24 September… More soon!
New shows at Centre for British Photography June 2023
Very happy to have my photographs included in the current display celebrating work by Format photographers at the wonderful Bishopsgate Institute, near Liverpool Street, celebrating 40 years since Format women’s photography agency was set up in 1983. (Proud to have been a member of Format from 1986!). This runs till 31 August.
Format Photographers display at Bishopsgate Institute
More of Format’s photographs will be included in two large group shows in London this autumn, details to come…
Format’s collection is held in the Bishopsgate archives; my own collection has also found a home at BI and is being catalogued. The webpage here is in development, more material will be added later this year.
My own webpage on the Bishopsgate website
At the start of April, the spring print issue of O’r Pedwar Gwynt, the Welsh-language review of books, published a feature on my book No Place Like Home: Echoes from Kosovo (Midnight Editions, USA, 2001). I’m delighted to have had my work featured in this journal. Written by Diane Bailey, the article was accompanied by three photographic portraits of Kosovar refugees that I took in Neprosteno refugee camp in 1999.
This Pleasant Land: New Photography of the British Landscape, is now out! I’m really pleased that several images from my 2013 work The Home Front (published by Dewi Lewis Publishing in association with Impressions Gallery) have been selected for this beautifully produced book, published by Hoxton Mini Press, which ‘looks at the ‘new terrains, memories and myths’ of the contemporary British landscape. Excellent texts by Rosalind Jana.
For the list of all the 24 photographers included in the book, more info, and to order, see:
https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/collections/books/products/this-pleasant-land
Busy sorting out the remainder of my archive right now, to add to my archive (Melanie Friend archive at Bishopsgate Institute). I am also occupied trying to contact women I photographed back in 1988 for my exhibition Mothers’ Pride, which focused on teenage/young mothers. Re-connecting isn’t that easy, as we originally communicated by letter and landline. And after 34 years, some have, unsurprisingly, moved house/flat! This work will be re-shown next year in a group show in London, which is very exciting, more news soon…
It’s great that part of the exhibition Photographing Protest: Resistance through a Feminist Lens that was held in the spring at Four Corners gallery in Bethnal Green, London has transferred to the Workers’ Gallery in Porth in Wales. People Power (Pwer Pobl) is on till 22 December, and includes some photographs (inc one of mine from Greenham 1985) from the Format collection at the Bishopsgate Archives. Very happy to be in this show, only sorry I wasn’t able to travel to Wales to see it…
I was very saddened by the death of Ian Jack on 28 October (see https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/31/no-journalist-had-a-deeper-sense-of-history-six-essential-ian-jack-works among other tributes to him in The Guardian). I first met him 20 years ago when he wrote a short piece (‘blurb’) for the back cover of my book No Place Like Home: Echoes from Kosovo. He was a kind and wonderful man, and a remarkable writer. I have just re-read his moving piece about his father Finished with Engines in The Granta Book of the Family, and I remember his 2010 long read Five Boys: The Story of a Picture as an incredibly insightful piece about Jimmy Simes’ well-known photograph, which delves deeply into the complexity of the stories behind and beyond this photo. It was published by 1843 magazine (the Economist) available here:
Five Boys: The Story of a Picture by Ian Jack
I was shocked and saddened to hear of the unexpected death of Eamonn McCabe on 2 October, an excellent photographer and award-winning Guardian picture editor (see obituary in The Guardian). He was always very supportive to me and many other freelance photographers who worked with The Guardian. Back in the 1980s/1990s, you could meet with a picture editor face-to-face, pitching up with a box of prints for them to whisk through. Eamonn was always kind, and curious, despite being under pressure.
I was a speaker at the Eye Festival in Aberystwyth on 8 October (which Eamonn McCabe had been involved with), and really enjoyed the whole weekend. It felt great to be back in a photography environment again, with a very engaged audience. Thanks to the Eye, and Glenn Edwards for inviting me to be part of it.
Great to attend the private view on 6 October of Radical Landscapes at the Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre (above, left). The original exhibition was at the Tate Liverpool during the summer (Tate curator: Darren Pih) before travelling to Warwick. The show’s on at the Mead till 18 December. Above (centre) shows the grid of photographs of peace protests from the Format Photography Archive (held at Bishopsgate Institute) on the wall of the Mead Gallery, with a photo I took of women protestors at Greenham Common in 1985.. The Greenham Common banner above (centre pic) is by Thalia Campbell.
While in Coventry, I also saw the exhibition Grown Up in Britain: 100 Years of Teenage Kicks (1 July 2022 – 12 February 2023) at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum. Very happy to be part of the protest photography section, which included projected images from a range of photographers. Two of my black and white photographs (1983 & 1985) showing women protestors from Greenham Common are on display, bottom left of the images below, thanks to Report Digital photo agency. These photographs are both in the Report Digital photo library and my archive at the Bishopsgate Institute, London.
An edited, digital version of Homes and Gardens: Documenting the Invisible was included in a multi-touch installation of works by a variety of international artists to accompany an exhibition of work in Luxembourg by artist Frans Masereel. If you Wish for Peace (30 April – 14 August 2022) was shown at the Musée National de la Résistance et des Droits Humain at Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg. Thanks to Henrik Elburn for the image taken below at the exhibition.June - July 2022
Image copyright: Henrik Elburn
In the end, got up to see Radical Landscapes in early August.
Looking forward very much to the presentations at the Radical Landscapes symposium in Liverpool 8/9 July, which sounds right up my street. And very happy that two of my peace protest photographs from the 1980s (including one from Greenham Common) have been included in this show, from the Format collection at the Bishopsgate Institute.
Also pleased to have a couple of 1980s protest photos included in the exhibition Grown Up In Britain - 100 Years Of Teenage Kicks, Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, Coventry, 2022-23, thanks to Report Digital.
Delighted that my works Border Country and Homes & Gardens: Documenting the Invisible (1996) are both mentioned in the new book just published by Gerry Badger, Another Country: British Documentary Photography Since 1945 (Thames & Hudson, 2022). An image from Border Country, taken at the Colnbrook immigration detention centre, is also reproduced in the book.
I’ve been busy with my archive and also getting back to attending photo events, the first time since the pandemic began. I went up to Milton Keynes to see the excellent show by Ingrid Pollard, Carbon Slowly Turning, and attended the 6 May Carbon Slowly Turning: Movement, Energy, Landscape Conference. Also great to hear the authors’ talks at the recent launch at Birkbeck College, London, of a new series of landscape books, Photography, Place, Environment (Routledge), edited by Liz Wells (Professor Emeritus at Plymouth).
I’m involved with a few group exhibitions this winter/spring which is exciting….
I have been busy liaising with the Musée National de la Résistance et des Droits Humains in Luxembourg. An edited, digital version of my 1996 work on Kosovo/a, Homes & Gardens: Documenting the Invisible (first shown at Camerawork Gallery, London) will be shown as part of the group show If You Wish for Peace, opening at the end of April.
I have two images from mid 1980s peace protests (including Greenham Common) being shown as part of the exhibition Radical Landscapes, at Tate Liverpool.
And one of my photographs from a 1985 anti nuclear protest at Greenham Common has been included in an inspiring show documenting protest across five decades: Photographing Protest: Resistance through a Feminist Lens at Four Corners in Bethnal Green, London 18 March – 30 April. This show includes a large number of Format photography agency photographs; I’m proud to have been a member of Format from the mid 1980s until when it closed down in 2003.
London Poll Tax Riot photograph (1990) was exhibited in Street Fighting Man exhibition at James Hyman Photography, Savile Row, London, W1.
‘My Best Shot’ slot in The Guardian, with interview by Sarah Phillips.
One of six photographers interviewed for a film made by Panos Pictures celebrating their 25th anniversary, Conversations in Photography: 25 Years of Panos Pictures.