Tom Hunter Selects

Co-curated by east London photographer Tom Hunter and the V&A East Youth Collective (2023-24), this display takes a deep dive into Tom’s relationship with east London, first and foremost, as his home for over 40 years and as the setting, subject and inspiration for his work.

The display draws from the V&A’s collections and Tom’s personal archive to explore east London as a place of radical thinking and resilience, and to reflect on the role of photography as a tool for documenting underrepresented communities.

Objects range from the cut-and-paste graphics of Peter Kennard, Jamie Reid (for the Sex Pistols) and Gee Vaucher (for Crass) to posters and ephemera from local events like the first ‘Carnival Against the Nazis’ in Victoria Park in 1978 (designed by David King) and campaigns like the M11 Link Road protests in the 1990s. 

Contemplating his own route into photography, through documenting his squatting community in east London, Tom’s selections also include the work of photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Paul Trevor for the Half Moon Photography Workshop.

Each year, X Selects invites two creative practitioners (artists, designers, collectives) to delve into the V&A’s collections and develop their own capsule display in the Why We Make galleries at V&A East Museum. The inaugural displays respond to the V&A East season theme of ‘Making East London.’