19/10/2024
If you haven't already, get along to David Hoffman's exhibition at the Museum of the Home, directly opposite Hoxton station. It's a taster for the book, which you can buy in the shop, and must.
'Endurance and Joy in the East End 1971-1987'. David Hoffman.
Spitalfield Life Books ISBN 9 780995 740174 £35
It's a superb, humane documentary of London's East End in a period of turmoil and transition - and barely hidden, biblical poverty and deprivation as community was dismantled, and tried to fight back.
You can't really understand how we got where we now are, without this history. The only thing missing is the smell.
Especially useful for showing to youngsters who now have this idea that the 70's and 80's were a golden age. They only know about the prosperity achieved by the deliberate survivors, not the brute Darwinism of the period and the attrition of freedoms, autonomy, community and dignity that made way for the present.
Yes, David is a friend and we go back 40 years on this subject, squatting especially. Regardless, IMV this book is one of the best uses of UK photojournalism ever. It should be taught in schools, because it's little less desperate now, just better hidden. Superficially the infrastructure is prettier but unaffordable. But it's lonelier, fractured by identity politics, nationwide, and internalised as a million mental health issues. This book joins those dots.
Please share this post with anybody who won't be interested. They need to see it.
