Strike a pose exhibition at Hackney Museum
Strike a pose, an exhibition based on photographs taken mainly during the 1970s at Gibson’s photo studio, Lower Clapton Road, Hackney opens on 1 October at Hackney Museum.
The exhibition is part of Hackney Councils Black History Month programme and features images from the 1970s including weddings outside Hackney Town Hall from recently arrived African, Asian and Caribbean families, studio portraits featuring nurses from the Caribbean in their uniforms, Asian women wearing their best salwar kameez and saris, family portraits at home, university graduations and all the fashion and styles of the decade.
Hackney Museum is also particularly keen to hear from people of African, Caribbean and South Asian backgrounds who had their photos taken at Gibson’s photo studio in the 1960s and 1970s. Or anyone who can help identify people in the photos on display.
The photos in the Gibson’s collection are a wonderful peek into the everyday lives of Hackney’s past residents. As a major part of the Council’s Black History Month celebrations I would encourage people to go along and see it.
The entire Gibson's photographic negative collection was generously donated to Hackney Archives by Kevin Danks. He said: "The collection illustrates a period of social change in Hackney after the Second World War. In the 1950s almost every shot features white, working class people and by the early 1970s this changes and the diversity we see today is evident. The rightful owner of this collection is Hackney Archives."
A selection of the negatives that make up the whole collection have already been digitised and can be viewed via flickr. These include a boxing match from 1952, possibly at Shoreditch Town Hall; a 1952 netball team from Nisbet House in Hometon and a Southwold School production of The Wizard of Oz.
Black History Month events will also be taking place in Hackney’s libraries and at Hackney Archives.
Hackney Museum can be contacted at: Hmuseum@hackney.gov.uk or 020 8356 7302.