Archaeology in Reverse

by Gill, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780954940553
• ISBN10: 0954940555
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-12-15
• Publisher: Nobody

Summary

Still using an old camera that he bought at the East London "Black Market" for half a pound (roughly one American dollar) while making his award-winning 2005 book, Hackney Wick, Stephen Gill here continues that body of work, offering 110 poetic and eerie color photographs of the people and places that populate this blighted but resourceful immigrant neighborhood as it gears up to be overtaken by London's 2012 Olympic Park. When Gill stumbled upon it in 2003, Hackney Wick's outdoor market was still a place where one might come across incongruously placed mountains of white lace curtains, video cassettes, shoes, washing machines, and anything else that might or might not have "fallen off a truck" nearby. Every language was spoken, from the local Cockney to various African dialects, Bengali, Turkish, Romanian, Vietnamese and Polish. The graffiti was splendid, the sounds and smells were vibrant, and the strength and ingenuity of the entrepreneurial spirit were always in evidence. Nowadays, as the neighborhood nervously looks ahead to a complete, corporate-architectural overhaul, this magnificently produced volume captures traces and clues of what's to come. With an Afterword by the acclaimed British writer and filmmaker, Iain Sinclair.