Celebrating Black diasporic life
Check out some rarely seen archival images by photographer Armet Francis
Armet Francis, from the series The Black Triangle, 1969-1981. Collection of Autograph, London
A Hackney arts charity has received 70,000 images by Jamaican-British photographer Armet Francis.
To mark the gift, Autograph is sharing a selection of rarely seen archival photographs from London and beyond in a new online display called ‘Armet Francis: Black Consciousness and the African Diaspora’.
Armet Francis, Spartacus R, London, c. 1971. Collection of Autograph, London
For more than 40 years, Armet has been documenting the African diaspora, celebrating people’s resilience and survival in the UK and abroad.
The gift comprises over 70,000 images – including negatives, prints and archival material – documenting Armet’s career from the late 1960s onwards.
Armet Francis, from the series Lambeth and Brixton Tube, 1994. Commissioned by Autograph, London
Autograph’s Director, Professor Mark Sealy OBE, says: “Armet Francis forged a photographic practice as an act of historical resistance: a visual counter-archive confronting the enduring violence of the Atlantic slave trade and its afterlives in contemporary Black diasporic life.
“Moving across fashion, portraiture, and social documentary, Francis became foundational to the development of Autograph ABP, insisting on Black photography not as a marginal practice, but as a transformative cultural and political force.”