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Welcome to
Four Corners Archive

 

Four Corners Archive explores and documents the film and photographic heritage of Four Corners, Half Moon Photography Workshop, and Camerawork Magazine, from 1972–1987.

Four Corners and Half Moon Photography Workshop (later Camerawork) were two innovative cultural organisations, based in East London. Their early work played a major role in the development of the radical film and photographic practice characteristic of the 1970s and early 1980s.

The project brings these unique archival resources into the public realm, making this important contribution to British cultural history widely accessible for the first time.

How to use the archive

You can search our archive in different ways and even save items to your lightbox to email the link for another day.

Use the sidebar to…

   Choose a theme to search for all items and
   any articles relating to that theme

   Search by keyword and format

   View my Lightbox

   View and filter the timeline

Download our handy user manual for further functions.

Four Corners Archive is made possible through the generous support of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

Discover     

0000497_HalfmoonCamerawork_Photograph_BuildingWorks_VentilationEngineerInSiteHut.jpg
Photograph

Mike Goldwater Collection

August 1979; Building works - Ventilation engineer in the site hut as more of the ventilation duc...
hard hats, drills, cement, dust, dirt
hard hats, drills, cement, dust, dirt, bricks, outbuildings, rubble, skip, carpentry, brickwork, builders, flooring, roof, views, extractor fan installation

 

 

Articles

Towards a New Politics of Photography

Politics of photography
Frances Whorrall-Cambell


In the first issue of Camerawork Jo Spence sought to explore what she called ‘the politics of photography’. For Spence, images had an ideological content, expressed through a ‘series of visual signals and short cuts’ which needed to be unpicked by reading the context from which the photographs sprung and the intentions of their creator.

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Latest

0001163_HalfmoonCamerawork_Poster_A PeaceOf TheAction_Lorraine Leeson_1983
Events

Women's History Month Events

Our online talks series is exploring how photography archives can both document the past and inspire the present. 

We are back with a new programme for Women's History Month, bringing together a range of brilliant speakers to discuss feminist film and photography. 

Featured

0000390_FourCorners_Poster_WhatsInANumber_TakeOne
Poster

What's In A Number - Take One

Poster for a day of film and video screenings at Four Corners Cinema by and about the Unwaged
unemployed, unemployment, unwaged, screenings, films
unemployed, unemployment, unwaged, screenings, films, video, event, tower hamlets, take one, thatcherism

 

This project is dedicated to the fond memory of Ed Barber (1949–2017), an important early member of the Half Moon Photography Workshop and Camerawork magazine, whose energy and enthusiasm helped create this project.