“Our new foyer display “Hidden” is three historical photo tableauxs created by photographer Red Saunders. These “tableaux vivant” or living pictures own key moments in history. They depict William Cuffay – the black chartist campaigning for the vote in Whitechapel; the revolutionary thinker and activist Thomas Paine and a bloody re-enactment showing Watt Tyler during the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt.
“These photographs hark back to an altogether earlier era and to the birth of the medium itself. Victorian photographers would make a composite of several different negatives, cutting out and merging the images to produce the finished result. Today, digital photography and retouching extend and re-invent the tradition giving it greater meaning and relevance to our times.
Saunders said:
‘I recreate important moments in the long struggle of working people for democracy and social justice. History has been dominated by kings, queens, war and ‘great men’.
Hidden engages with a different historical narrative involving dissenters, revolutionaries and radicals.’
“Red Saunders combines his photographic practice with cultural, artistic, musical, and political activism. He made his name as a photographer with the innovative Sunday Times colour supplement, a relationship that ended with the Wapping dispute, and was a founder member of the Rock against Racism campaign.
“Hidden is on display in the Museum of London foyer, entry is free.”
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Thank you to Lucy Inglis and Georgian London
