Black Consciousness and the African Diaspora

In this series of fashion photographs taken for 19 magazine, a young women’s fashion magazine, Francis chose to portray black British style against the lively backdrop of Brixton market capturing the effervescent bold fashion of the 1970s. At this time, Brixton had developed a large black British community, following migration mainly from the Caribbean, in a post-war period during which London underwent radical social changes. Francis saw this commission as an opportunity to showcase rare frames of black joy and celebration. “To photograph a black model in an urban, multicultural society holds an important social documentary meaning, which for me started in Jamaica in 1969 and continued in this fashion shoot.” The resulting images are glamorous and vibrant capturing the emerging sense of black British style.

Francis’s photographic journey over four decades encapsulates the fragmented experiences of diasporic communities. In 1994, Autograph commissioned Francis to capture the diverse community around the London borough of Lambeth, with a focus on Brixton Tube station. The resulting series of photographs depict people from all walks of life going about their everyday business.

Another later commission, a series of portraits taken in 2008, documents those who had arrived on the Empire Windrush in 1948, acting as a critical intervention that gives names to the faces of those who journeyed on that historic voyage which changed Britain forever. As the late Professor Stuart Hall stated, Francis “tried through his images to reassemble the fragmented experience of dispersal around a compelling Pan-African vision.”