October 2019 – 31st January 2020
British Culture Archive’s debut exhibition took place at The Social in London between October 2019 to January 2020. The exhibition featured selected works from BCA photographers.
Patricia Anne ‘Tish’ Murtha (14th March 1956 – 13th March 2013) was the third of ten children and grew up in the West End of Newcastle Upon Tyne.
While studying at Newcastle College of Higher Education, her lecturer persuaded her to study documentary photography at Newport College of Art. The institution was newly set up by Magnum photographer David Hurn.
During her interview with Hurn, she said that she wanted to photograph ‘policemen kicking children.’ Hurn said that it was the shortest interview he had ever done because he knew exactly what she meant and knew she would be a social photographer.
Photo: Tish Murtha © Ella Murtha, all rights reserved.
Rob Bremner is a British social and documentary photographer who was born in Wick, Scotland.
After leaving Scotland, he went to study in Wallasey where he became acquainted with celebrated photographers Tom Wood (who was teaching at his college) and Martin Parr, who lived nearby. He would help out in Tom’s darkroom and spend his weekends following Tom and Martin around the faded resort of New Brighton as they documented the area.
Rob was later accepted into David Hurn’s School of Documentary Photography in Newport. It was around this time that he started to photograph the Everton and Vauxhall areas of Liverpool, which was then the third most deprived area of Britain with the highest rate of arson in Europe.
Bremner captured the mood of these times, along with the everyday lives, friendly faces, and local characters who were proud of their city and the communities to which they belonged.
Photo © Rob Bremner, all rights reserved.
The launch featured a DJ set by Heavenly Recordings founder Jeff Barrett.
