In Between Gallery
Statues by Tish Murtha
Statues by Tish Murtha is taken from her series Youth Unemployment (1981) to document the harsh realities faced by communities in the Northeast of England during the Thatcher era.
Tish’s images of those on the margins of society challenged and documented the inequalities faced by working-class communities. In equal measures, they celebrated what it means to be working-class. Being part of the community she was documenting, Tish Murtha’s work is among some of the most empathetic and powerful examples of social documentary photography of the 20th century.
British Culture Archive has worked closely with The Tish Murtha Archive since 2017. Each year, inspired by her work, BCA produces ‘Documenting Your Community’, a showcase of work by photographers capturing life in their communities in present day Britain.
The Documenting Your Community exhibition is part of Photo Fringe 2024. The exhibition can be found at 3-4 Dukes Lane (a two-minute walk from Fabrica) Fri-Sun, 4-13 October.
About The Artist
Tish Murtha (1956-2013) was a British documentary photographer known for her raw, powerful images that captured the struggles of working-class communities in the UK. Born in South Shields, near Newcastle, she grew up as one of ten children in a large working-class family. Murtha’s experiences of poverty and social injustice deeply influenced her work. She studied photography at Newport College of Art under the mentorship of renowned photographer David Hurn, where she developed her unique documentary style. Murtha used her camera to highlight the lives of marginalised people, focusing on issues such as youth unemployment, housing conditions, and urban decay during the economically turbulent 1970s and 1980s.
Murtha’s most iconic works include Youth Unemployment (1981), which depicted the harsh reality of joblessness in the Northeast of England, and Juvenile Jazz Bands (1979), which explored the lives of children in the region’s deprived communities. Through her photographs, Murtha sought to bring attention to the social and political injustices of her time, becoming a voice for the voiceless. Although her work did not receive widespread recognition during her lifetime, Murtha’s legacy has grown in recent years, with posthumous exhibitions and publications bringing her important contributions to documentary photography to a global audience.
