Vanley Burke
Vanley Burke has lived and worked in Birmingham since 1965 and has recorded the community from the late 1960s to the present day. His images dispel myths and provide a rare and historically significant portrayal. The work has been published widely across the world, and featured heavily in The Times, The Guardian and The New York Times. “I have used this visual medium to create a visual history of the African-Caribbean communities in and around the Midlands, capturing that tension which is so hard to put into words... The tension of the immigrant child of every generation spoke as loudly to me as if I were looking at a reflection of myself as a boy.” In this series of work the camera and the photographs become sensitive recording machines, showing the life being lived in the black community. Vanley is a highly skilled and experienced documentary photographer. His photographs have been featured in over 60 major exhibitions across Britain, Europe, America and South Africa and are in many significant public collections.