Victoria and Albert Museum London
Normski, Africn Homeboy, Brixton London, 1987.
Staying Power – About the Project
Al Vandenberg, ‘Untitled’, c.1975-80, from the series ‘On a Good Day’, printed 2010, gelatin silver print. Museum no. E.423-2010. Given in part by Al Vandenberg and Eric Franck. © Al Vandenberg
Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience 1950s-1990s is a project to increase the number of black British photographers and images of black Britain in the V&A collection. It aims to raise awareness of the contribution of black Britons to British culture and society, as well as to the art of photography.
Photographs collected by the Museum will be used to generate oral histories. There are plans for the photographs and oral history testimonies, from photographers and community members, to be jointly exhibited at the V&A and Black Cultural Archives (BCA) in its new building in Brixton. The five-year project is a partnership between the V&A and the BCA. It is funded largely by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF).
Black Cultural Archives
Black Cultural Archives (BCA) was founded in 1981 as a grassroots community and voluntary organisation. BCA promotes education about the cultural identity and history of people of African and African-Caribbean descent in Britain. It aims to become the leading national institution dedicated to collecting, preserving and celebrating the histories of black people in the UK.
BCA’s archive collection includes rare historic documents, oral histories, photographs, and as well as a unique collection of periodicals and independently published material. BCA operated from a shop front location in the centre of Brixton, South London for its first 20 years. It is currently working to open the UK’s first Black heritage centre, which will house its archive, library, learning and exhibition spaces.
Cynthia M. Prescod (Mum) at home in Prinrose Hill London, 1986.
One of the participants of Staying Power is Normski
Normski was born in 1969 to African Caribbean parents and raised in North West London. At the age of eight he started taking his own photographs and by eighteen he was working as a freelance photographer on fashion and music shoots, helping create the look of style magazines such as i-D and The Face. Many of his images captured the vibrancy and freshness of 90s youth culture in London, which foresaw the fusion of style, music and fashion from America, the Caribbean and Britain. Normski’s images have also been printed in Dazed & Confused, Vogue, NME, Melody Maker, The Times, The Observer and Se7en. He also makes appearances as a DJ and on TV where he is best known for having presented BBC2’s Def II and Dance Energy in the 1980s and 1990s.
She Rockers, Sheperd Bush Green, London 1988.
Islam B-Boys, Brixton, London, 1987.