Despite my lack of enthusiasm for his pots, I’ll admit that Grayson Perry in his weekly Times column is usually worth a read. This week he writes about A Thousand Faces – photographer Hal Satterthwaite’s 1000 portraits of people in Walthamstow:
Satterthwaite had the idea for his project when he returned home after working for two years in Sydney as a nurse. He was struck by how happy multicultural London felt after Australia, where he thought they had handled racial integration very badly. He wanted to portray and celebrate our world-class melting pot, the largely cheerful co-existence of all the different races and cultures. It is a mixture that makes our capital probably the most diverse place on earth.
For 14 months, twice a week for five hours, Satterthwaite would hang about in Walthamstow Town Square and accost passers-by, asking if he could take their portrait. He had a little trouble getting some Muslim women to participate, but he was usually able to strike a deal with them as they always wanted their children included, so he said that he would photograph their kids if they let him take their portrait as well.
This policy of including all groups paid off. When he checked the racial mix of his subjects he found that it tallied exactly with the official statistics, 54 per cent white, 22 per cent Asian, 21 per cent Afro-Caribbean, 3 per cent other. With funding from Awards for All he has printed the A4 portraits on Foam-X board. The result is to be displayed — as he always intended — in the location where they were taken, in the town square.
It’s a great website.
And didn’t Walthamstow used to be a National Front stronghold? It’s not all bad news out there.
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