Vanley Burke a Jamaican social documentary photographer most known for his iconic images depicting black culture within Birmingham during the 1970s and also recently. Burke’s work from the 1960s and 1970s capture the real black Windrush Generation which was gradually migrating from his home country over to Birmingham and other parts of the UK. Not satisfied with how black migrants where being presented in mainstream media, Burke decided to document what the authentic African-Caribbean community and culture were like within Birmingham, worlds away from the common misconceptions and underlining racism of the Native British. Burkes photographs all hold a political sensitivity, underlying questions which the viewer is forced to decide.
While browsing through Burkes archive, one photograph stood out amongst the rest: a street portrait of a young boy holding his bike, with a Union Jack flag flying from the handlebars (Figure 1). The theme of identity within this image is evident; the boy is of African-Caribbean heritage but feels connected with the country which their family emigrated to. This at first can be interpreted as a young boy embracing the new society which they are living within but once you start to analyse further, the viewer can portray the scene in a much darker way. In the present, the Union Jack creates a great sense of pride and patriotism to British people but only a hundred years ago the flag was feared by many countries who associated it with colonisation and oppression. Jamaica was colonised by Britain in the 18th century and only became independent in 1962, meaning the boy riding with the flag within Burke’s community may have evoked some negative connotations. When questioned on this portrait, Burke explained ‘To have this young man with this flag, it poses a lot of questions’ (BBC, 2017) and later elaborated on the theme of identity with philosophical questions within his community such as ‘Who we are, where we are and who we are likely to be’ (BBC, 2017). The portrait also explores the notion of what nationality may mean to the young boy; he grew up in a community full of African-Caribbean and therefor their traditions, but he may also feel connected to British life for which he became a part of. The idea of a flag being taken away from its history then used and associated in different ways is a different take on what it means to belong to a certain geographical place. For instance, the boy associates the Union Jack with his community which happens to be held in the UK, while a woman living in the Scottish Highlands may view the flag in a different way. This idea can also be applied to the way people may interpret the English Flag: UK citizens living in rural communities feel pride when seeing the St George’s Cross while a quarter of British people associate it with racism (Copping, 2012).
Like many other photographers I have researched during the Identity unit, Vanley Burke’s work clearly depicts a period of time which was personal to himself and as well as his community. By being a member of the community which he was photographing, Burke was able to capture the people how they really were and not how the photographer wanted to portray them. Burke held the same values and political ideology as the people within the photographs, meaning he understood them completely. You can recognise the connection Burke created between him and the subject, they trusted him to portray their community in the right way to the rest of the UK, unlike how they felt other photographers were presenting them.
BBC Britain In Focus (2017). [Online Video] Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDUYj5k98ic (Accessed 2/1/20)
Copping, J. (2012). St George’s flag is a racist symbol says a quarter of the English. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9217620/St-Georges-flag-is-a-racist-symbol-says-a-quarter-of-the-English.html (Accessed 2/1/20)