Image © Crispin Hughes/Photo Co-op Archive. Courtesy of Martin Parr Foundation. Image shown at Photography versus Thatcher exhibition.
Set up in 1990, the space remains committed to image-making and image-makers, and now has a handsome new London home, Tom Seymour and Diane Smyth report
Founded in 1990, Photofusion was part of a radical moment in photography. Located in Brixton, south-east London, it was in an area renowned for alternative living, home to collectives, squats and initiatives such as Autograph, set up in 1988 as the Association of Black Photographers. Photofusion was established as the Photo Co-op by a group of female photographers – Gina Glover, Sarah Saunders and Corry Bevington – concerned about the ways in which women were presented in the media. They had met while working together on the campaign to save South London Women’s Hospital, and their documentation of the hospital became the basis of the Photo Co-Op Archive.
Photofusion was also part of another alternative strand in London at the time: the network of community darkrooms that emerged in the 1970s. Photofusion has always included darkrooms in its offer, in which members and non-members can print their work, and then display the results with the organisation. In the 1990s, it provided an outlet for alternative narratives on the UK and its communities and, claims its website, “Representation, inclusion, and diversity have always been at the heart of what we do”.
Last year, some of this early work went on show at Photofusion in an exhibition, Photography versus Thatcher: The Photo Co-op Archive, Prints and Objects, 1979 to 1986 – Photofusion’s Origin Story, curated by Chris Boot. Including original library photographs – laminated panels from campaign exhibitions – it captured the community-driven approach that defined the Photo Co-op, and was the first time these artefacts have been shown collectively.
“You must always have an eye on finding those partners and opportunities… I’ve never worked in a silo”
But this exhibition also testified to the future of Photofusion, because it was held in the organisation’s handsome new gallery. Originally housed in a first-floor space on Electric Lane – off the famous Electric Avenue – Photofusion moved to International House in 2015; this was supposed to be a temporary stopgap but ended up being home for seven years. Then in April 2024, Photofusion finally moved into a more permanent space, which gave it a street- level gallery for the first time. Just round the corner from Brixton Tube, the new venue on Beehive Place is part of Brixton Recreation Centre and owned by Lambeth Council, who have leased it out for at least the next 10 years. The council also gave Photofusion a capital grant to develop the space, allowing it to create purpose-built facilities including two galleries, two studios, darkrooms, a film- processing department, digital production and education rooms. “We’re bigger and better than before, we have this amazing space,” says director Jenni Grainger.
Grainger is part of the changes. Joining Photofusion in January 2024, she is not from a photography background, having come from the theatre sector, but has lived in south London for 22 years, and always worked in subsidised arts. Joining as Photofusion moved building was a baptism of fire, she laughs, but she is quickly settling in and bringing her past experience to bear. Photofusion is part-funded by Arts Council England, she points out, but it also has to look for commercial possibilities and collaborations to supplement its income. “You must always have an eye on finding those partners and opportunities,” she says. “I’ve never worked in a silo. That was my pitch in my interview, and I think that’s why I was given the chance to run Photofusion.”
She credits her predecessor, Kim Shaw, with having done much of the groundwork, steering Photofusion through a period of change in which it achieved ACE National Portfolio Organisation status, and won the grant and lease for Beehive Place as part of Lambeth Council’s plans to revitalise the ‘Brixton Rec Quarter’. Photofusion is a charity and part of that status comes from its work with the local community; moving into the new space has brought a renewed commitment to removing barriers for people who may find it harder to access the visual arts or creative activities. Photofusion has also long been involved with photographic education, and is now doing more with its Photofusion Educational Trust, including hiring an education manager. Photofusion runs classes in darkroom and camera skills, for example, but more recently the artist Tom Lovelace held a workshop on ‘Photography and the Senses’.
“What we find is that photography courses are really packed at universities, but as soon as students leave that environment, where they’ve got darkrooms, enlargers, all that equipment at their fingertips, where do they go?” says Grainger. “That’s where we serve a function, because our USP is to keep ourselves affordable and be a home for all photography, including digital, analogue and alternative processes. People come in and try all kinds of weird and wonderful new things. We also run a free young mentors scheme in our studio on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, in which 16 to 25-year-olds can come and do shoots and develop their portfolios.”
Of course the darkrooms and studios can be hired by anyone, but Photofusion has about 400 people in its membership scheme, who access reduced rates, a members’ room, a library, a monthly group crit and the chance to participate in two members’ exhibitions per year. The organisation runs commercial interests, such as film processing and digital production, and printing and framing work destined for venues such as the V&A, and its gallery spaces can be hired out. Photofusion also rents space to a co-operative that has survived as a co-operative, Parallax, a film and photographic supplier, which offers reduced rates to Photofusion members. “We’re keen to do more partnership work going forwards,” says Grainger. “The Photography versus Thatcher exhibition was also a partnership, for example, with the Martin Parr Foundation [which now holds the original Photo Co-Op Archive].”
As she points out, times are hard in arts funding, so Photofusion has to create collaborations and commercial opportunities; but it is still committed to its local community, and sometimes these strands cross over. “On a micro level, we’ve just put in a bid to have some of our young photographers take the images for the Big Caribbean Lunch – a Windrush celebration that happens in Brixton every year, outside in Windrush Square,” says Grainger. “We’d love to partner up and have our younger photographers create an exhibition and show it at our gallery, and help get local people into our space who might not usually think to come. And ideally, we’d get some funding to support it all.”
Threads Of Identity is open now at Gallery 2, Photofusion, a series of portraits by Lambeth-based photographer, Henos Adhanom. photofusion.org