ECLECTIC FLAVOUR

Joy Gregory, Roshini Kempadoo, Addela Khan,
Franklyn Rodgers, Yinka Shonibare

January 15 - March 15, 1998
Contact Sheet 95


This exhibition reflects the ever-evolving and constantly diversifying creative impulses amongst Britain's Black photographers. It showcases the ways in which "Black British photography" has undergone a continual process of pluralization that brings with it a new resistance to collective or common approaches to issues of identity and the use of the camera. The photographers selected for this exhibition remind us that Black photography's visage of common purpose has been splintered into an infinite number of pieces; each piece in turn representing personal narratives, and different approaches to subjects such as history, geography, locality, and identity.

Yinka Shonibare
From the series
Effnik, 1996
Made in collaboration with Joy Gregory

The exhibition's aim is to indicate, in a deliberately eclectic manner, some of the ways in which photographers of African and Asian origin have developed or acquired the confidence to explore individual agendas and multiple, and at times seemingly contradictory, notions of identity. What these photographers have in common with their predecessors, and what they have in common with each other is their dedication to keeping themselves at the center of their practice.