Chris Dorley Brown has documented London's East End all his life, culminating in this book, A History of the East End, his first monograph.
Dorley Brown is a self-taught British documentary photographer whose cultural education was formed in East London in the late 1970s, against a backdrop of highly polarised political conflict and change.
The photographs presented in this book – almost 100 – were taken between 1984 and 2023. The journey through the book is akin to taking a stroll. Starting on the banks of the Thames, we discover the vernacular architecture of the 1980s and their demolition a few years later, followed by more recent architecture. We follow the transformations brought about by the construction for the Olympic Games, the deserted streets during lockdown, before ending again on the banks of the Thames, almost at its mouth. One-offs, here and there, intersperse these main themes.
