After completing the 1975 project on ‘Women and Work’, the Hackney Flashers began to question how much could be shown by using documentary photography while working on a project on childcare. The resulting project ‘Who’s Holding the Baby?’ combined photographs, appropriated imagery, cartoon illustrations and texts in laminated panels. The exhibition showed the lack of childcare and the impact this had on women’s lives. The project was first exhibited in 1978 at Centreprise in Dalston, Hackney and then toured widely in community centres and libraries across the country. It was exhibited at The Hayward Gallery in 1979 as part of the exhibition Three Perspectives on Photography. Copies of the original panels are now on display in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid.
See our Archive for material relating to the production of the work and it’s display at the Hayward Gallery and other venues.
All images ©Hackney Flashers.
