Visual Culture and Decolonisation in Britain

First published in 2006, this volume provides the first in-depth analysis of the place of visual representations within the process of decolonisation during the period 1945 to 1970. The chapters trace the way in which different visual genres – art, film, advertising, photography, news reports and ephemera – represented and contributed to the political and social struggles over Empire and decolonisation during the mid-Twentieth century. The book examines both the direct visual representation of imperial retreat after 1945 as well as the reworkings of imperial and ‘racial’ ideologies within the context of a transformed imperialism. While the book engages with the dominant archive of artists, exhibitions, newsreels and films, it also explores the private images of the family album as well as examining the visual culture of anti-colonial resistance.

1. ‘Festering Britain’: the 1951 Festival of Britain, Decolonisation and the Representation of the Commonwealth. Jo Littler. 2. Images of Industrialisation in Empire and Commonwealth during the Shift to Neo-Colonialism. Anandi Ramamurthy. 3. Late Colonial Exoticism: John Minton’s Pictures of Jamaica, 1950-1952. Simon Faulkner. 4. Francis Newton Souza and Aubrey Williams: Entwined Art Histories at the End of Empire. Leon Wainwright. 5. A Journey through the Imperial Gaze: Birmingham’s Photographic Collections and its Caribbean Nexus. Sandra Courtman. 6. ‘Can Whiskey Come Too?’: Records of Family and Friendship in 1960s Malawi. Patricia Holland and Emma Sandon. 7. ‘There’ll always be an England’: Representations of Colonial Wars and Immigration, 1948-1968. Wendy Webster. 8. Casting a Giant Shadow: the Appropriation of Colonial Imagery in Three Pro-Zionist Films. Richard Farrow. 9. Fragments in the History of the Visual Culture of Anti-Colonial Struggle. Hakim Adi and Anandi Ramamurthy.

Simon Faulkner is Lecturer in the History of Art and Design at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Anandi Ramamurthy is Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural History at the University of Central Lancashire, UK.