24 2021- Coming of age in a pandemic

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More than a year since the start of a global pandemic, and three lockdowns later, come and ease out of lockdown at 24photography's 18th anniversary show – one of the first exhibitions to reopen in the UK.

Given current restrictions please only come in pairs to begin with, but from 29 March outdoor gatherings of either six people or two households are allowed to meet up, so why not come and visit one of London's longest running annual independent photographic exhibitions?

Eighteen years ago 24 photographers set out on an ambitious journey: to document New Year's Day for the next 24 years.

To begin, each was allocated one hour of the day during which to record what was going on around them. But the project did not stop there. This was a project that was to last 24 years, with each photographer progressing one hour every year, so that at the end of 24 years, there will be 24 sets of images from New Year's Day. Or 576 images.

Now, three-quarters of the way through our journey we can begin to take stock of the changes we have seen and look forward to more to come. Changes from one year to the next are often incremental, viewed over a decade, or over two decades these small changes develop into massive shifts in day-to-day life that only the passage of time highlights. But 2020 changed all that. If ever a year felt like you were living during history, then this was it; a pandemic, deaths, lockdowns, isolation, social distancing, and finally hope with potential vaccines. All in one year. A year in which we learnt new words, new ways to behave, new ways of interacting with each other, and new ways of examining what normal life is, all viewed through the lenses of 24 photographers.