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Working in the dark: Fox Talbot and salt paper prints

When I heard that a William Henry Fox Talbot photograph from 1845 was to be included in upcoming Bridge exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, I felt a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Excitement that we even have such a rare and experimental photo in our collection and trepidation that the word facsimile would not be received well when I uttered it. The photograph, a salted paper print, is stored inside an archival box in a newly refurbished photo store. When I lifted the lid on the dark blue box, to assess its suitability for display, I immediately wanted [...]

Bridge: Views of London’s famous crossings

I’ve often been struck by the number of people I know who feel there’s something very special about crossing a London bridge. It’s that sudden emergence from the warren of streets to see the city laid out before you. That’s when you see the iconic London: the river, the skyline – Westminster, St Paul’s, Tower Bridge – it’s all there. One friend even went so far as to say ‘that’s when you remember why you live in London’. In Bridge, our new exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, we’ve tried to reflect this in two works made over 200 [...]

Bomber Jackets

A few weeks ago I found myself surrounded by fascists. I was on my way to the West End when at Tower Hill station a large group of French-speaking men with assorted girlfriends and wives (I presume) entered my tube carriage. Most if not all of the men wore black bomber jackets with embroidered patches on their sleeves. Even if I had not known about the neo-nazi rally that was supposed to take place in London the following day, the black uniform and the Gothic scrip on the patches and half-hidden T-shirts were a bit of a giveaway. The group [...]

Looking after London’s ghosts…

When I first started working at the Museum of London’s Archaeological Archive I was told there was a ghost in our metal store. More Casper than Blair Witch, the ghost allegedly helped you find objects that had been ‘misplaced’. Sadly, I’ve never seen this ghost, but with 200,000 boxes containing millions of fragments of London’s history, I think it fair to say the ghosts of London’s past sit on our shelves. I’ve sometimes found myself alone in the store. Often, I don’t really think about this sort of stuff and it can very easily feel like the archive is just [...]

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