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Magnum Photographer Chris Steele-Perkins seems to have been cognisant of a growing sense of national panic about immigration when he started The New Londoners in early 2014: an ambitious record of “a new London, a new Britain and a celebration of the [capital’s] fabulous cultural richness”.[1] With Brexit still only a glint in Nigel Farage’s eye, Steele-Perkins sought to draw attention to the existing patchwork of nationalities that comprised London’s population. This would be “both a historical statement about the condition of the nation, and also hopefully a political one”: conveying the UK’s adopted citizens as integral to the city’s identity and cultural life, while parrying the media’s demonising rhetoric of ‘otherness’ with intimate portraits of ordinary family life.[2]
So as to illustrate London’s multicultural and inclusive nature, Steele-Perkins aimed to photograph families originating from every UN-recognised country in the world. This condition was later seen as unnecessarily arbitrary and abandoned, allowing him to include individuals from Tibet and the Chagos Islands. The result is an epic series consisting of 164 portraits of people from 187 different countries, depicting families of all ethnicities from across the globe in their London homes. These photographs are the epitome of international diversity. People from South Korea, Equatorial Guinea and Kenya are represented alongside partners from widely different cultures such as Mexico, Spain and Pakistan. Some are refugees having fled conflict, while others came to London to study or work. Some subsequently fell in love and decided to make the capital their home. Single mothers, large extended families, gay couples and groups of friends are all embraced by Steele-Perkins’ global vision of family.
While foregrounding national and cultural multiplicity, his photographs are tethered to an everyday sensibility. Families congregate around the sofa or dining table, their walls filled with family photos. Children play and gurn irrepressibly, while relatives across multiple-generations embrace, laugh and exchange banter to create dramatically compelling scenes. This generous, vivacious energy is apparent throughout the series. One particularly endearing image shows Vietnamese-born Trinh Huynh and her British partner (whose mother was Indian) sitting in an orderly but ordinary kitchen with their children. Their son Sachin, perhaps compelled to perform for the camera, elatedly screams, causing his aurally affronted sister to clutch her ears, while both parents beam with guilty indulgence. Steele-Perkins intends to show “normal people in normal life doing normal things [who] just happen to be from every country in the world,” and succeeds in doing just that: conveying a common humanity through the prism of family and the importance of home.
Throughout his career Steele-Perkins has documented peculiarly British behaviours and social rituals. Though living in Somerset from the age of two, the Burma-born photographer often felt like an outsider in the largely white town of Burnham-on-Sea. In his introduction to The Pleasure Principle in 1989, a photographic record of the era’s hedonistic pursuit of happiness, he ruminated: “I suppose that if you are not entirely white, you are never entirely British.”[3] Thirty years later however, The New Londoners illuminates just how much the concept of British identity has changed, reminding us of the increasingly rich complexity of individual identity in a globalised world. We see a Jamaican-born mother sitting in front of a Sex Pistols poster that declares “Fuck Forever”, from which hangs a red, gold and green striped Ethiopian flag, while another image depicts the son of Guyanese and Polish parents posing in a Superman t-shirt and Union Jack socks. Meanwhile, a collage of a young Queen Elizabeth II looks out over the home of a mixed Armenian, Trinidadian, French and Dutch family. Cultural and national influences enmesh in a series that strikingly demonstrates just how much of a melting pot London really is.
Originally meant to coincide with “Brexit Day” on March 29th, the UK’s anticipated departure date from the European Union, The New Londoners is currently on display across multiple locations. The British Library are presenting twenty of these images until the 7th July, and have acquired the full set of 164 prints. The significance of their acquisition is clear to Steele-Perkins: a validation of other cultures’ contribution to UK life and the recording of this fact for posterity. Concurrently, a larger selection of seventy prints are being exhibited at the Migration Museum until 26th May, where The New Londoners photobook also received its official launch.
– text by Daniel Pateman
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Work currently exhibiting at:
The British Library
96 Euston Rd
London
NW1 2DB
The Migration Museum
26 Lambeth High Street
London
SE1 7AG
The New Londoners photobook is also out now and available to purchase here
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[1] http://www.chrissteeleperkins.com/portfolio/portraits/new-british/ [accessed 16th April 2019]
[2] https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/behind-image-chris-steele-perkins-new-londoners/ [accessed 16th April 2019]
[3] https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/chris-steele-perkins-the-pleasure-principle/ [accessed 16th April 2019]
