A History of the East End

Self-taught, Chris Dorley Brown formed his cultural education in the Stratford district in the late 1970s, in a context of conflict and of highly polarized political changes. The photographs presented in this book – more than 100 – were taken between 1984 and 2023. The journey through the book is like a stroll: starting From the banks of the Thames, we discover the vernacular architecture of the 1980s, the destruction of these same buildings a few years later, then more recent architectures. We follow the transformations caused by the work for the Olympic Games, then deserted streets during lockdown to find themselves on the banks of the Thames, almost at its mouth. Accidents here and there are interspersed between these main themes. Texts and tracts are slipped into the book. The author tells his story journey with a certain ease, which reminds us of its publishers, its oratorical talents, in a particularly visual construction where the anecdote rubs shoulders with the deepest thoughts. This photographic work takes on all the scope it deserves in the book, It tells a story of the East End, but it is also and above all a testimony of late capitalism, of its capacity to always take new forms to spread better.