Archive: Imagining the East End comprises a wide variety of approaches
to photographic work in representing the area of the East End of London,
UK. It is accompanied by essays by leading academics, photographers and
archivists which investigate the concept of a photographic archive in
historical and theoretical contexts. The East End Archive at the Cass
holds collections from artists and photographers, such as Jo Spence and
Tom Hunter aspects of whose practices have been concerned with the East
End of London and its diaspora; the East End is seen as both a
geographic and conceptual space, interpreted as a perpetually shifting
frontier where dreams, dissent and transformation co-exist. Traditional
and historic views together with the newly fashionable status of certain
areas of the East End are also explored.