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Wednesday 11am - 6pm Thursday 11am - 9pm Friday 11am - 6pm Saturday 12pm - 6pm

Autograph

Photography exploring issues of race, identity, representation, human rights and social justice Our gallery is located at Rivington Place in Hackney, London.

Autograph's iconic building was designed by Sir David Adjaye and is England’s first permanent public space dedicated to diversity in the visual arts.

26/07/2026

38 years ago Autograph was launched 🎈🎉

Since 1988 our mission has remained unchanged: to championed photography and the work of artists that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights and social justice

As we look back, we’re deeply grateful to the artists, partners, funders and audiences who have supported Autograph’s work for almost 40 years. Your support has enabled us to build a growing collection, commission new work and create space for powerful stories that continue to shape and challenge perspectives

Here we share photographs from our collection and commission over the years 🌟 And a photograph from the night Autograph became a legal entity with our founding signatories

13/04/2026

We’ve been busy at Autograph installing our new exhibition Nhu Xuan Hua: Of Walking on Fire 🔥

Opening 16 April with free entry

22/10/2025

Over the summer, sixteen young Londoners explored themes of identity through photography 📸

The works they’ve created reflect what matters most to them growing up in the city today. These self-portraits are deeply personal, drawing on music-filled bedrooms, cultural heritage and streetwear. Some explore faith, nostalgia, displacement, self-acceptance and the complexities of growing up in London today

The result is a powerful reflection of the new generation of artists

Today we’re celebrating their efforts at our launch event. Want to see the photographs? They’re up in Autograph’s gallery until 25 October, with free entry 🌟

Common Ground is an annual collaboration between Autograph and UAL Insights that introduces young people to photography through an artist-led programme⁠ ⁠

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13/10/2025

Exhibition now open ⚡ I Still Dream of Lost Vocabularies
On until 21 March 2026

Examining political dissent and erasure through the idea of collage, from cut paper to generative AI⁠

This major group exhibition examines how photographs can be deconstructed and reassembled through the idea of collage, offering new perspectives on complex histories and contested social realities. There is more than 90 works by 13 contemporary artists who use collage as both method and metaphor, highlighting the fragility of photographic ‘truth’ and the archives that hold it

As we reflect on the future of image-making, the exhibition resists completeness, questioning whether constructed images can stand in for disputed – and often entangled – narratives when words fail⁠

🎟️ Prebook free exhibition tickets with our bio link⁠ ⁠

Curated by

Featuring: , , , , , , , Henna Nadeem, , , , and ⁠ ⁠

Supported by and

📸 ⁠All images courtesy the artists

08/10/2025

“Everyone can be dyslexic, you just need to try harder.”
– Benedict L Phillips

Multimedia artist uses his creative practice to explore personal experiences of being dyslexic in our text heavy society. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of his work ‘The Agenda of the Agresiv Dislecksick’, we’ve published a new online gallery, sharing a selection of key works produced by Phillips over the course of the past three decades which playfully unpack, re-present and reclaim dyslexic identity

30 Years of the Agresiv Dislecksick 📸 Link in ’s bio

04/03/2025

“Lazhar Mansouri’s photography studio was more than a site for creating images; it was a space where history was both documented and enacted.”
– Bilal Akkouche

Shot primarily between the late 1950s through to the 1970s, Algerian photographer Lazhar Mansouri (1932-85) captured everyday scenes including weddings and family gatherings, but the work also serves as a record of the indigenous Amazigh people’s struggle for self-determination and agency

Writer discusses the studio work of Mansouri in a new writing commission as a result of Autograph’s 2024 Call for Writing

Read the full text with ’s bio link 📝 Framing Liberation: The Photography of Lazhar Mansouri

📸 Lazhar Mansouri (1932-1985), Untitled, Aïn Beïda, circa 1960s [detail]. © Lazhar Mansouri. Courtesy of Westwood Gallery NYC
With special thanks to Margarite Almeida, James Cavello and Matthew McPhillips at

10/02/2025

Tickets now available 📢 Encounters: Art, Power and Archives

A one-day, in-person symposium examining how creative practices can disrupt power structures embedded in archival collections

🔸 Tuesday 18 March
🔸 9:30am - 5:30pm
🔸 Autograph, London
🔸 Tickets are £40, including lunch

and present a new symposium examining strategies and methodologies to rethink, reimagine and reshape the histories embedded in archival collections

We will examine how archival materials can be reactivated through diverse perspectives and disciplines, challenging dominant narratives. With a focus on decolonial and q***r methodologies, this symposium will invite discussion on approaches that encourage a continual re-engagement with archives

Hosted in Autograph’s gallery, the symposium will take place surrounded by exhibitions underscoring the critical role of archives

The full symposium schedule and speaker list will be released shortly. Limited tickets are available to ensure the best experience for everyone

to book

17/01/2025

📢 Applications Open for London Artist-Teacher Residencies📢   and are inviting applications for two fully funded residencies, offering time and space to develop a new body of work that explores the relationship between personal creative practice and teaching  🔸 The residency is for London based secondary school art and photography teachers from global majority backgrounds 🔸 Each residency will be six months long, starting either September 2025 or 2026 🔸 Apply by 10am (GMT) on Monday 3 February 2025  The residency model is designed to work within the context of a school setting and takes place in your classroom. It is tailored to artist-teachers who have a visual arts practice outside of teaching and are interested in how practice and teaching inform one another  Find out more on how to apply with the link in bio

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Applications for London Artist-Teacher Residencies is part of our Visible Practice Residency programme. In partnership with Autograph and The Photographers’ Gallery and generously supported by

15/12/2024

Call for papers 📢 Submit your project or research addressing how creative practices can disrupt power structures embedded in archival collections

In March 2025, and will host a new symposium ‘Encounters: Art, Power and Archives’ in London to discuss strategies and methodologies to rethink, reimagine and reshape the histories embedded in archival collections

Submit your paper for a paid opportunity to present your work at the symposium ✨ Here’s how to apply:
🔹 Read full details about the call online
🔹 Submit a 400-word project description and a 200-word bio
🔹 Along with samples of supporting material: up to 6 images and 3 links
🔹 The deadline is Wednesday 8 January 2025

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Encounters: Art, Power and Archives is a partnership between Autograph and Parse Journal

Image: Sasha Huber, Tailoring Freedom – Fassena [detail], 2022. Commissioned by The Power Plant, Toronto; Autograph, London; Turku Art Museum, Finland; and Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam. Original image courtesy the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 35-5-10/53048.

08/10/2024

Abi Morocco Photos: Spirit of Lagos⁠ 📸 New exhibition coming up at Autograph this autumn

The first exhibition of these remarkable portraits capturing the rich style and joyous spirit of Lagos in the 1970s⁠

🔸 Starts 31 Oct at Autograph⁠
🔸 Shoreditch, London
🔸 Prebook free tickets https://bit.ly/3VKUeWG

Spirit of Lagos unearths the story of Abi Morocco Photos, one of the most vibrant photographic studios operating in Lagos. The studio’s remarkable black-and-white portraits celebrate the rich style and joyous spirit of a generation of Lagosians during a transformative period in Nigeria’s history

Operated by husband-and-wife duo John Abe and Funmilayo Abe the studio thrived from the 1970s to 2006. The exhibition Spirit of Lagos focuses on the studio’s formative decade — the 1970s. When viewed collectively these beguiling portraits brings the sitters and their world into a space of liberation and reimagination, vividly capturing the rhythm of everyday life

The works on display are the result of the ongoing efforts of the Lagos Studio Archives project, which aims to preserve and present the legacy of Nigerian studio photography

Curated by Lagos Studio Archives and Bindi Vora

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Image: Abi Morocco Photos, Aina Street, Shogunle, Lagos, 1979⁠

Exhibition supported by Arts Council England, Kone Foundation, Frame Contemporary, Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland and Yinka Shonibare Foundation

Address

1 Rivington Place
London
EC2A3BA

Opening Hours

Wednesday	11am - 6pm
Thursday	11am - 9pm
Friday	11am - 6pm
Saturday	12pm - 6pm

Telephone

+44 (0)20 7729 9200

Website

http://www.autograph.org.uk/

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