Ten.8 afterimage

Ten.8 afterimage explores the legacy and enduring impact of Ten.8 (1979–1992), a photography journal that emerged from the Midlands’ radical cultural and political landscape. Ten.8 played a key role in shaping critical debates about representation and the politics of photography.

Ten.8 offered new ways of thinking about photography’s social, cultural and political responsibilities. Founded in Handsworth in 1979 amid major social and political change in Britain, the journal was shaped by several key moments across the later 20th century, from the Handsworth and Brixton uprisings, Thatcherite neoliberal reforms, and the rise of Black British cultural politics. Ten.8 also engaged with global conversations around feminist movements, gay and lesbian rights and struggles against apartheid, colonialism, and state violence. Ten.8 afterimage engages with the continued relevance of the contexts and concerns that the journal addressed. The exhibition brings photographic works produced in the 1980s and 1990s into dialogue with more recent artworks, bringing into focus key considerations raised by Ten.8 across the subjects of visibility, power, and representation.  

The exhibition will present a newly commissioned work by British Ghanaian visual artist Heather Agyepong alongside works by Ajamu X, Dawoud Bey, Zarina Bhimji, JEB (Joan E. Biren), Derek Bishton, Brian Homer & John Reardon, Vanley Burke, Chila Kumari Singh Burman, Gon Buurman, Renee Cox, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Latoya Ruby Frazier, Joy Gregory, Sunil Gupta, George Hallett, Claudette Holmes, Roshini Kempadoo, Dave Lewis, Cynthia MaiWa Sitei, Masterji, Ming de Nasty, Ingrid Pollard, Franklyn Rodgers, Donald Rodney, Jamel Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, Jo Spence (in collaboration with Rosy Martin), James Van Der Zee, Maxine Walker, Carrie Mae Weems and Deborah Willis.