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Nicola (Quasi) and Sue (Squasher), The Royalty Southgate, March 1981 (L). Nico and Sue, Ljubljana Slovenia, April 2017 (R).
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Claire and Sarah, The British Museum, March 1981. Found (Buzzfeed).
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Red Ladies, The Blitz in Covent Garden, January 1981.
Exhibition
Visible Girls: Revisited Bristol
6 Sep 2018 – 4 Oct 2018
Event times
Monday - Saturday9AM–5PM
Cost of entry
free
Visible Girls: Revisited, is a photography commission and national travelling exhibition of female portraits by photographer Anita Corbin. The exhibition brings together original images of women from different subcultures of the early 1980s and newly commissioned portraits of the same women now.
About
Visible Girls: Revisited, isa photography commission and national travelling exhibition of female portraits by photographer Anita Corbin. The exhibition brings together original images of women from different subcultures of the early 1980s and newly commissioned portraits of the same women now.
The work will reunite women with their adolescent selves, exploring the ways in which photography can reveal and reflect upon identity and society at various stages of women's lives.
In 1981, as a young female photographer at the beginning of her career, Corbin made 28 double portraits of young women from different cultural groups: skins, mods, punks, rockabillies, new romantics, rastas and young lesbians. She was fascinated by the ways in which cultural allegiance and identity were boldly and explicitly expressed through fashion, music and environment by women emerging from adolescence.
Captured in their natural hangouts of clubs, pubs, friends’ homes and social centres, these girls were living in the moment and dreaming of the future. The groundbreaking project, Visible Girls, toured the UK in the 80s and 90s, showing in youth clubs, town halls and libraries. The images are a rarity for the time, not only because of their subjects but because of the photographer's technical approach using slow colour film and portable flash.
In 2016 Corbin launched an international social media campaign in order to track the women down. Now, 38 years later and with over 80% of the women found, the original images of those young women will be displayed alongside a new series - of the women they became. Alongside the images will be original tape recordings of interviews with some of the girls from 1981 and interviews with them now. Individual stories behind each image will be revealed, exploring how the women's lives have changed since the original shot was taken. What has happened in those 38 years? Have their lives developed as they imagined? How have changes in society and its attitudes to women affected them?
A special ‘In Conversation’ on Tuesday 18 September 2018 at 6pm between Bristolian Visible Girl, Sue aka Squasher and Photographer Anita Corbin will accompany the Bristol Trinity exhibition.
