Documenting the everyday faces of austerity Britain
- Text by Patrick Heardman
- Photography by Graeme Oxby (main image)
![Documenting the everyday faces of austerity Britain](https://images.huckmag.com/tco/images/Huck/Polk-Salad-Annie-at-home-in-Doncaster-2017-by-Graeme-Oxby_2023-03-27-104300_krat.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Invisible Britain: Portraits is an upcoming ethnographic photography book featuring people from across the UK who’ve suffered at the hands of austerity politics, cuts to public services, unemployment and de-industrialisation.
The collection of images, edited by Paul Sng and co-curated by Chloe Juno and Laura Dicken, work together to evoke a powerful sense of resistance and stoicism in the face of adversity.
Accompanying each portrait is the story of the subject told in their own words – a detail which Sng saw as vital. “One of the things I wanted to make sure of was that each individual was able to speak for themselves,” he tells Huck. “Myself or the photographer would ask some questions about the state of the country but then also we’d look a bit deeper into their own situation. The main guiding point of it was to show that there is hope out there, and that people that are often very capable of organising on a grassroots level to deal with things that maybe politicians are unable or refuse to get involved in.”
![Jon Tonks](https://images.huckmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Martin-Hunt-Kellingley-Colliery-One-of-the-last-deep-coal-miners-in-the-UK-by-Jon-Tonks.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Jon Tonks
Sng’s 2017 documentary Dispossession: The Great Housing Swindle covers similar ground as it speaks to residents across the UK about the worrying shortage of social housing. But Sng says the idea for Invisible Britain: Portraits came in the run-up to the 2015 general election. He was shooting a documentary following Nottingham band Sleaford Mods on a tour of the UK, visiting some of the most neglected and forgotten pockets of the country. In each location, they spoke to local communities and residents about how austerity had impacted their lives and how, if at all, they could resist these forces.
“A lot of the people that we were meeting, rather than being kind of beaten down by it, were organising their communities and resisting,” he recalls. “In mining communities, for example, there was the organising of the campaign for an Orgreave inquiry. After the [Dispossession] came out I started thinking about a photography book that would actually tell the stories of some of the people we met, stories of people finding hope among these situations that were in some ways, quite hopeless.”
Sng sees Invisible Britain: Portraits as a means of countering the often negative and stereotypical narratives in the press of council estate residents, benefit claimants, refugees and other minority groups. By providing these individuals with a platform to tell their own stories directly, he hopes to help break down the stigmatisation of these groups.
![Cian Oba-Smith](https://images.huckmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Abdullahi_Andover_SixAcres_PhotobyCianOba-Smith.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Cian Oba-Smith
![Nicola Muirhead](https://images.huckmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Shan_20-years-resident-15th-Floor-Trellick-Tower_InBrutalPresence_Photo-by-Nicola-Muirhead-1.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Nicola Muirhead
![Joseph Murphy](https://images.huckmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/DavidTurnerTamarPhotobyJosephMurphy-1.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Joseph Murphy
![Jo Metson Scott](https://images.huckmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/George-F-Flittner-Barbers-by-Jo-Metson-Scott.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Jo Metson Scott
![Dan Wood](https://images.huckmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Suicide-MachinePhotobyDanWood-_0436.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Dan Wood
![JA Mortram](https://images.huckmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Jimmy-Small-Town-Inertia-Dereham-Norfolk-by-JA-Mortram.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
JA Mortram
![Debbie Humphry](https://images.huckmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Ralph-Secure-council-tenant-Axe-the-Housing-Act-Homes-for-All-London-by-Debbie-Humphry.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Debbie Humphry
![Rob Clayton](https://images.huckmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Liz-Activist-Govanhill-Glasgow-Dispossession-The-Great-Social-Housing-Swindle-by-Rob-Clayton.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Rob Clayton
![Laura Dicken](https://images.huckmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Libs-Inbetween-Days-Unseen-by-Laura-Dicken.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Laura Dicken
Invisible Britain: Portraits is supported by The Young Foundation, a charity that tackles major social challenges by working alongside communities, using the tools of research and social innovation and team has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help fund the book’s publication which is due in late 2018.
Follow Patrick Heardman on Twitter.
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
Latest on Huck
![My journey through the immigration system shows things must change](https://images.huckmag.com/tco/images/Huck/Huck_MissingVoices_WebHeader_240627.png?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
My journey through the immigration system shows things must change
Forced to live life under the radar, then locked in detention before finally getting a temporary right to remain after 24 years, Nico is urging the next government to bring kindness and compassion into Britain’s asylum system.
Written by: Nico, a refugee from Zimbabwe
![The untold story of surfing’s ancient African roots](https://images.huckmag.com/tco/images/Huck/Sierra-Raequeljpg-LO.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
The untold story of surfing’s ancient African roots
Watch a Huck-exclusive preview of Wade in the Water, which reclaims the 1,000-year-old Black surfing tradition and hopes to inspire a new generation of Black surfers.
Written by: Sam Haddad
![The exquisite joy of finding comfort in your skin](https://images.huckmag.com/tco/images/Huck/BRITT_MG_8260_2024-06-27-121413_cgsy.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
The exquisite joy of finding comfort in your skin
New photo book The Book of Skin: Shangri-La explores the relationship between the body and the earth, the part and the whole, in a voluptuous embrace of the spirit made flesh.
Written by: Miss Rosen
![Inside the wild world of novelty political candidates](https://images.huckmag.com/tco/images/Huck/Huck_Illo_Inside_the_wonderful_world_240617.png?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Inside the wild world of novelty political candidates
From Binface to Buckethead, Elmo to Mr. Fish Finger, Britain has a long history of madly dressed mavericks standing in elections, but who are they, who votes for them and what do they represent? Kyle MacNeill investigates.
Written by: Kyle MacNeill
![Derek Ridgers’ seminal street portraits of 80s London youth](https://images.huckmag.com/tco/images/Huck/5.-Flanagan-King%E2%80%99s-Road-Chelsea-1983.jpg?w=1920&q=75&auto=compress&format=jpg)
Derek Ridgers’ seminal street portraits of 80s London youth
A new book brings together a collection of the photographers never-before-seen photographs of punks, skinheads, New Romantics, goths, ravers, and fetishists at the height of Thatcherite Britain.
Written by: Miss Rosen
Zarah Sultana: “You won’t break my soul”
We caught up with the Labour candidate for Coventry South as she fights for re-election to talk about her first term in Parliament, the future of the country and whether football is coming home.
Written by: Ben Smoke