We are pleased to announce that a stunning
collection of images of London's East End, captured by award-winning
photographer Paul Trevor, are now available to view online at VADS: http://www.vads.ahds.ac.uk/search.php
Academics and artists at London Metropolitan
University have been working with photographer Paul Trevor to make a selection
of his images of East London digitally available to artists, students and
researchers. The Collection includes 500 images (chosen from a total of 120,000)
of the Spitalfields area from the 1970s to the 1990s, a period of rapid social
and physical change.
The Paul Trevor Collection is part of a larger
archive project at London Metropolitan University, which will eventually include
oral as well as visual narratives, that aims to represent aspects of the lives
of local East End communities in their distinctive social, economic and
political contexts.
In selecting the images, the project team have
tried to be reflective and consider why they were drawn to particular images,
and which cultural narratives influence their selections and how the present
shapes what we identify as significant about the past. They articulated a shared
goal of trying to 'capture the spirit of the time', whilst being aware that they
were also producing that spirit through their interpretations, discussion and
choices.