The ‘Handsworth Self Portrait‘ Project: Listening to Photographs, Resisting Racism, and the Rhythm of Black Handsworth

The Handsworth Self Portrait project (1979) was a makeshift outdoor studio that challenged the media’s criminalizing portrayals of Handsworth and its black community by inviting residents to take their own photographs. These photographs are situated within the time’s politicized field of photography and the local black community’s cultural forms of resistance. Drawing on Paul Gilroy’s term the Black Atlantic and Tina Campt’s analysis of photography’s sonic aspects, the photographs are explored as sensory documents relating to the time’s realms of reggae and Rastafarianism. Additionally, the continuing relevance of these photographs is demonstrated as revealing 1970s Handsworth’s intricate cultural histories.