Exhibition: Photographs of Life and Culture in Brixton

A photo exhibition that gives an insight into life and culture in Brixton will begin next Friday highlighting positive parts of the area that had a negative reputation.

Chris Steele-Perkins has been a professional photographer for nearly 50 years travelling around the world making social issues, urban poverty and subcultures in the UK the main focus of his work.

Now he has a collection of photos of the place he has spent a large part of his life in and intends to showcase Brixton in a better light.

Chris said: “I half think of myself as from South London, I grew up in Somerset but I moved to Brixton in my early 20s and have lived there or in East Dulwich ever since, and will probably be here for the rest of my life.

“The photographs in the exhibition have sort of come together by accident. I used to travel a lot as a photographer and I would like to think of Brixton as my home where I could relax and not take photos for work but for fun.

“I was recently looking through the photos I had taken and thought it would be interesting to show Brixton in a time when it had a bad reputation and was less desirable.

“I think the biggest difference between Brixton then and Brixton now is that there was no Victoria line before and that made the area so much more attractive to property buyers which made the property prices much more expensive and the demographic then began to change.

“I also want it to be a call out to the people in the photos to come along to the exhibition, we are trying to reconnect with them through Facebook and social media.

Hopefully the kids in the photo, above, will recognise themselves and if they do, wow, come along mates.”

In Brixton; May 3 to June 29; LA Noble Gallery.
Visit www.lauraannnoble.com for more information.