"If you have lived in Hackney, you will feel the photographs intimately. If you have not, you will appreciate the nearly cinematic set pieces that Dorley Brown crafts." (Brad Feuerheim)
"[Chris Dorley Brown] is a wonderful writer with a natural and unpretentious voice. It sounds like he’s sitting next to you in the pub, telling tales over a pint of beer, sometimes playful, sometimes profound. (…) It’s a wonderful, meandering, theatrical series of images, a mixture of architectural and social documentary photography with a vaguely mysterious atmosphere hovering over them." (Colin Dutton)
Chris Dorley Brown has documented London's East End all his life. Today, we are delighted to present this collection in a retrospective book - the photographer's first monograph.
Chris Dorley Brown is a self-taught British documentary photographer, based in London's East End. His cultural education was formed in East London in the late 1970s, against a backdrop of highly polarized political conflict and change.
The photographs presented in this book - almost 100 - were taken between 1984 and 2023. The journey through the book is like taking a stroll: starting on the banks of the Thames, we discover the vernacular architecture of the 1980s; their demolition a few years later; followed by more recent architecture. We follow the transformations brought about by construction for the Olympic Games; then, the deserted streets during lockdown; ending on the banks of the Thames, almost at its mouth. One-offs, here and there, intersperse these main themes.
Texts and leaflets are included in the book. The author recounts his career with a certain ease that reminds us, his publishers, of his oratorical skills: the depictions are very visual, and anecdotes are related side-by-side with his most profound thoughts..
This photographic work is given the scope it deserves in the book, revealing the history of the East End. It is also a depiction of how capitalism and development took on new forms as it spread through the area.
Press
Brad Feuerheim for American Suburbx
Hackney Citizen
TimeOut
Londonist
Colin Dutton's blog
The Sound of Photography (Podcast)