The Godfather of Black British history talks about documenting life through the lens of his camera.

Feature by Diane Parkes

From this month until the autumn, visitors to Handsworth’s Soho House can experience the lives of local people over the past 50 years through a collection of pictures and archive materials from internationally renowned photographer Vanley Burke.

Known as ‘the Godfather of Black British history’, Birmingham-based Vanley has spent his life documenting the experiences of his community through the lens of his camera, while also collecting items relating to their lives.

Many of these photos and items are this month being brought together in the free-to-view exhibition, Blood & Fire: Our Journey Through Vanley Burke’s History, which shows at Soho House from 25 May until 30 October.

Born in Jamaica in 1951, Vanley’s love of photography began when his mother gave him a Kodak Brownie box camera at the age of 10. Arriving in Birmingham when he was 15, he set about capturing the lives of the people around him - from their everyday experiences to dramatic social events including demonstrations and riots. 
“I have been taking photographs and collecting ephemera relating to the African-Caribbean community for a number of years now,” says Vanley. “Many of these are in an archive at Birmingham Library, but I also have a number of materials still in my possession.
“I’ve drawn on that body of work for this exhibition to be representative of the people of my history. And so we have curated a space in which people can engage with the ideas of history, migration, settlement, and all of those issues which are about our lives. They are junctions or individual moments and events of cultural continuity.” 

The archive includes many personal items which have never been exhibited before - but for Vanley, the emphasis is on how other people will relate to them.

“The objects all have stories connected to them, and it’s about extracting these stories for a conversation. There’s a paraffin lamp, for example, and there are so many stories associated with that because each person comes with a different story. I’ve heard quite a few of these stories - someone liked it because it made a pattern on the ceiling, and another hated it because it caused a fire which killed her sister. 

“It’s about asking the questions - how do we get those stories, how do we interrogate the past, how do we tell our children of the experiences we endured? It’s also for me to show the people back to themselves after they’ve been shown in a negative light for so long. It’s important for other communities who are going there to realise how dignified we are in poverty.

“I think the resilience of us as a people shouldn’t really go unnoticed. We have had bad press over the years, and I think we weren’t always able to represent the pain at the time. We have been extremely creative in the arts, science and education; we are playing our part. Those stories and experiences, all that building, was achieved despite the fact that the background noise was very much one of abuse.”

And the story continues.

“Our heritage will change over the years, but it’s important that a lot of this heritage is passed on. As individuals we need more than ourselves to hold onto, and some of this is cultural. So, for example, you do certain things at Easter, at Christmas, and within the family structure. Those things will happen, and there will be changes along the way. But in terms of some of the culture, it remains. I mean, come on, you can’t really change ackee and saltfish that much, can you? We have to hold on to some of these cultural things and talk about them - which is, for me, why the archive is an essential part of that conversation.”

Blood & Fire forms part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival, an event which is taking place to coincide with the Commonwealth Games being staged in the city. Vanley believes this is the ideal time to reach new audiences.

“All these people will be travelling to Birmingham because of the Games. We have one of the largest Jamaican communities in the country and one of the largest African-Caribbean communities in the country, and I think there will be a lot of people from the Commonwealth countries and other countries who would like to see themselves - or their cousins, let’s say - reflected in these lives.”

The exhibition’s title, Fire & Blood, has interesting origins. In the 1990s Vanley lost part of his collection in a shed fire at home. The ‘blood’ element of the title, meanwhile, refers to his lifeblood and the lifeblood of his community.

“The blood is everything I do, the blood is signifying us and the struggle. I do a libation for the ancestors. I ask their permission to enter their business. But it’s not a libation of blood - it’s a libation of a little bit of rum!”

Vanley was keen for Fire & Blood to be staged in Handsworth, the home of the community from whom he takes his inspiration and at whose heart he works.

“I said to myself one day many years ago, how have I assumed this role of photographer of the community? Who appointed me and what community is it that I’m photographing? Who is it for, and do they even know that I’m collecting these photographs? I thought one way to test it would be to put an advert in the paper to say that I was going to be burning my negatives in Handsworth Park on such-and-such a date and time. I was playing around with this idea, not that I would actually do it, but I was walking through Handsworth Park and saw this young man. I was telling him the story, and he said ‘they’re not yours to burn’. Somehow that answered the question. It showed me that my photography serves its purpose, which is about its relation to people whose history has been tarnished and for them to repair themselves.”