Catalogue description Vanley Burke Archive

Gelatin-Silver work prints, 35mm transparencies, exhibition prints both commissioned and non commissioned. Exhibited and not exhibited original works by Vanley Burke that include multi-media collages and experimental photographic prints.
Documentary material including flyers, posters, publications, orders of ceremonies, programmes, newsletters, newspapers, business papers, press releases, correspondence and more. This material is largely related to the Birmingham and West Midlands region, but there is some national and international material.
The dates given above reflect the range of the material in this collection, however some of the images in the photographic prints were taken in the 1960s.

Digital reproductions of some of Vanley Burke's photography can be viewed online at the following websites:
Digital Handsworth project: http://www.digitalhandsworth.org.uk/
Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool: http://www.openeye.org.uk/archive.asp?sectionId=5
Blue Tycoon: http://www.blue-tycoon.com/
Moving Here project: http://www.movinghere.org.uk/browse/v.htm
Birmingham Central Library website: http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/ and search for "Vanley Burke"
The BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ and search for "Vanley Burke"

Please also see the Related Material section of this description for details of where physical copies of some of the prints collected here may also be held.

City Archives collections directly related to material in this collection:

MS 1579, the Cadbury Trust records contain funding applications from groups such as the Afro-Caribbean Self Help Organisation and Black Dance Development Trust (among others) which give background detail to the groups applying.

MS 1620, papers of West Midlands Arts

MS 2165 Birmingham Afro-Caribbean Organisation (established in the 1940s)

MS 2209, records of the Birmingham Anti-Apartheid Organisation

MS 2220, papers of All Faiths For One Race (AFFOR)

MS 2265, photographs by Sukhvinder Singh Ubhi, includes photographs of Vaisakhi events in Birmingham

MS 2303, Vaisakhi records deposited by the Council of Sikh Gurdwaras.

MS 2350, photographs by Sue Green of Birmingham International Carnival.

MS 2356, photographs by Sangeeta Redgrave of Diwali celebrations in Birmingham

MS 2362, photographs by Max Kandhola about fashion, including black fashion and style.

MS 2364, photographs by Birmingham photographer, Pogus Caesar

MS 2448, photographs by Robert Taylor, 'Portraits of Black Achievement'

MS 2449, photographs of Handsworth, the Truth and Reconciliation process in South Africa and South Africans in exile by George Hallett.

MS 2478, papers of Derek Bishton, includes Ten.8 magazine and Handsworth Self Portrait records.

MS 2532, Vanley Burke prints used in the 'Echoes From the Frontline' exhibition

MS 2877, Liz Hingley 'Under Gods - Stories from the Soho Road'

MS 2912 Dyche studio collection of photographs, including prints relating to the African Caribbean and Asian communities in Birmingham.

MS 4337 'From Negative Stereotype to Positive Image' project

MS 4530 the 'Being Here' project

The above lists are not exhaustive lists of the related sources in the archive, for example there are a number of black photographers whose work has been deposited at the City Archives.

The Local Studies Department, Central Library Birmingham holds more gelatin-silver prints of photographs taken by Vanley Burke. Other places where his prints and works are held include the Arts Council England; Castle Museum Nottingham; Walsall Library Local Studies Department; Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool; the Caribbean Culture Centre, New York; and East Midlands Afro-Caribbean Arts (EMACA), The Art Exchange, Nottingham.

Vanley Burke

Partially closed (Content)

'The Council of Elders: A Tribute to the Veterans of the South African Liberation Struggle', Bulbulia, T. (ed.) 1997 Minaj Publishers, Lagos and London. See also MS 2192/A/N 'Council of Elders'

'Vanley Burke: A Retrospective', Sealey, Mark (ed.) 1993 Lawrence and Wishart, London. See also MS 2192/A/M 'The Journey'

'It's just about the ability to see something others may be unable to see, in terms of the value. Then show people. They need to see their contribution to this community. I mean, they have been contributing to this thing from the 50s and it's gone beyond, but there is no reference anywhere. It's about having themselves reflected, they are so desperate to see themselves. But this will be there, it isn't going anywhere...': Vanley Burke, September 2005.

Vanley Burke was born in Morant Bay, in the parish of St. Thomas, Jamaica in 1951. He was sent a camera from his parents, who were living in England, for his 10th birthday. In 1965 he came to England to join his parents. As a parting gift to his Aunt he had a choice between leaving her his radio or his camera, and he left her his radio.

Vanley Burke began photographing in earnest from around 1967; he made a conscious decision to document the black community saying, "what I try to do is imagine a friend of mine who has never been to this country, and I say 'what would he or she like to know about this place?': what sort of houses we live in, how people use the house, how people use the environment, how they worship, how they do all of this sort of thing. And in that sense that's how I try to capture the people, in their environment, the space around them." (Excerpt from interview used on the Digital Handsworth website, http://www.digitalhandsworth.org.uk/). Vanley Burke's photographs not only capture his own experiences of being newly arrived in Britain and his encounters with the different landscape and ways of living, but also the experiences of the African Caribbean community itself as people try to establish their lives and their community in Birmingham and Britain. Vanley Burke's interest has recently expanded to cover other communities, besides the African Caribbean, and their experiences. This is somewhat reflected in both the photography and the documentary material sub collections. The photographic work was created, in one sense, to counteract Burke's perception of negative and stereotypical images of black people and culture found in mainstream media. The photographs re-present the black community back to themselves in an intimate portrayal and are taken from his perspective as a member of the community; as opposed to capturing a documentary image as taken from an 'outsider' perspective.

Vanley Burke's formal photography career has included working at Birmingham Polytechnic in the 1980s. He was awarded a Kodak bursary in 1979. His first major exhibition was held at the Ikon Gallery and the Commonwealth Institute in 1983. This exhibition was 'Handsworth From the Inside'; an exhibition that was first shown at Grove Lane Junior and Infants School in Handsworth, Birmingham in 1970. He has since had his work exhibited internationally, including in New York (the Caribbean Culture Centre, the Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Studio Museum in Harlem) and South Africa (Museum Africa). His work is also used in community exhibitions, in venues as diverse as clubs, churches, schools, and public houses. Vanley Burke has been commissioned to work in schools and to provide material for television programmes (such as Ebony). His work has been used in documentaries (for example Handsworth Songs), books, and record sleeves among other things.

During two trips to South Africa, in 1991 and 1996, Burke respectively photographed the life of black South Africans shortly after Mandela's release from prison, and the celebrations hosted and attended by Nelson Mandela with the ANC Party for the Anti-Apartheid veterans.

To complement and enhance his photographic documentation, Burke collects material which samples and evidences the variety of motivations, activities and developments of the black community in Britain, and related and surrounding communities. The material comprises things that may have been seen as disposable at the time of their creation but in this context take on greater significance, and provide valuable insight and evidence of the daily activities, transactions, motivations, affecting issues, cultural life, and even health concerns among many others, of the black community in Birmingham and Britain during the relevant period.

This ongoing collection is an expansive and vital resource for anyone studying or interested in the black and other minority ethnic communities in Birmingham and the U.K., their everyday lives, arts, politics and international awareness. It also contains a great deal of the photographic work by Vanley Burke both on this subject and others such as homeless people in Birmingham.