UK PAGEANT SCENE

About

Sometimes touching, sometimes provocative, Jones' formal portraits of beauty pageant entrants at live events , sit alongside those of contestants photographed in their own homes. From behind the scenes of regional heats, through to the crowning moments of the final contest. an accumulation of 3 years research and documentation, this exhibition lays bare the often unglamorous reality of what was once a mainstream event that attracted over 50 million viewers during its heyday in the 1970's and 1980's. It is this reversal in popularity that attracted Jones to the pageant scene, I look at this as anthropology of an underground event. The lack of mainstream support for the pageant scene has seen it become a bizarre sub-culture"."