Sandra George: Start From The Level art review – Inspiring class politics
The Edinburgh-based documentary photographer is given a stirring retrospective
‘Start from the level people are based’ was the ethos of Sandra George, who made her home in Edinburgh and contributed to various charities and community action groups with her photographic essays. Split into strands of community and home, the images in this exhibition (curated in collaboration with local art centre Craigmillar Now and with input from her son Tyler) are typical of the social realist mould, documenting tensions and positive action in the working-class culture of Edinburgh during the first flush of Thatcherite politics.
Her meticulously catalogued images of protest and solidarity are a reminder of connections that remain between the 2020s and the 1980s, two periods of mass deindustrialisation and technocracy which galvanised leftist politics and protest movements. If issues as diverse as race, pornography and anti-capitalism remain relevant today, other aspects of the exhibition prove the past is a foreign country: community centres, now largely shuttered or depleted of resources, are depicted as down-at-heel but vibrant hubs where all walks of life are welcome.
Despite her social and political focus, touching moments of autobiography reveal themselves in the home strand, in which George profiles her son’s upbringing. Hints of the art life are seen in the negative space of each photo, from the tastefully paint-spattered walls of her flat on Bread Street to the reference books piled next to her living-room chair. They’re the signs and symbols of an artist dedicated to her craft, to the seriousness of everyday life and to the joyful responsibilities of motherhood.
Sandra George: Start From The Level, City Art Centre, until 27 September.