Despite taking thousands of images of community projects across Scotland between the late 1980s through to the late 2000s, Sandra George never exhibited her work in her lifetime.
As a prolific Black female social documentary photographer and community educationalist, she captured unique portraits of life within marginalised communities and was concerned with issues across community, care, access and equality.
Now, over a decade after her death, a new exhibition will celebrate her legacy.
Presented by The Glasgow School of Art Exhibitions, the solo exhibition of Sandra George’s work forms part of the open Programme for Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2024, Scotland's biennial festival of contemporary art.
Born in Nottingham in 1957, George lived the first seven years of her life in Jamaica with her mother, before moving to Birmingham, and then Edinburgh, to live with her father.
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She studied at Napier University gaining a BA in Photography; then a BA in Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art in Drawing and Painting.
George was a freelance photographer for over 30 years for organisations and publications such as the Sentinel, the Tollcross Community Newspaper, Shelter, and the Craigmillar Festival News and the Craigmillar Chronicle.
In the 1980s, she worked in Community Development in Wester Hailes in the 1980s and in Craigmillar for organisations including McGovan house, the Thistle Foundation, and the Craigmillar Community Arts Centre in the 90s.
In 2004 she graduated in Community Education at The University of Edinburgh. In 2008 she was Youth Services Manager with Hunter’s Hall Cooperative, Craigmillar, the same year she launched Niddrie Community Youth Group.
She worked extensively around Wester Hailes and Craigmillar, capturing communities like the Braille classes at the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh, and the British Hotels Disabled musicians.
George’s collection of thousands of negatives she took in her lifetime is held by Craigmillar Now, a community-led arts and heritage organisation based in Craigmillar, Edinburgh.
The collection is being cared for by a team of volunteers who are in the process of re-housing, cataloguing and digitising them with the support and guidance of her family, most specifically her son, while working to grow George’s photographic legacy through greater visibility and profile.
Craigmillar Now have previously curated Sandra George, Craigmillar 1988–1994; The White House, Craigmillar 2022; Sandra George, Craigmillar 1988–1994, Oman’s Pub, Craigmillar 2023; and in the group exhibition We Craigmillar, at The Craigmillar Heart’s Community Club 2023.
The solo exhibition of George’s work presents her photography and a selection from her wider artistic multi-disciplinary practice which includes printing, painting, bookworks, textiles and jewellery.
Her perspective and insight as a Black female social documentary photographer and artist adds further importance to the collection, with women photographers of colour capturing community life in Scotland significantly underrepresented over the time period she worked.
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And while George never exhibited her work in her lifetime, its message – community, care, accessibility and equality in the arts and workplaces, ethics in working with others in under-reached communities, exploration of identity - are all relevant to issues and themes today.
The exhibition is curated by The Glasgow School of Art Exhibitions Director Jenny Brownrigg, who has curated several key exhibitions of work by women social documentary photographers in Scotland, including Franki Raffles: Observing Women at Work (2017) and Glean: Early 20th-century women photographers and filmmakers in Scotland (2022–23).
The exhibition and accompanying programme is developed in collaboration with Rachael Cloughton, the director of Craigmillar Now.
About George's work, her son, Tyler Hewitt, said: "Sandra created a visual record of community-led, grassroots projects happening across Scotland over decades. Her work demonstrates what so many can achieve and what is possible with the right education or support, particularly those who many of society have deemed of little or no value.
"This work betters our world and all our lives, lifting all of us for mutual reward. I hope others will be inspired from seeing this show, particularly new generations of artists, community workers and educators. I also want to add how grateful I am to the women of Craigmillar Now for all of their great work.”
Jenny Brownrigg, GSA Exhibitions Director, added: "GSA Exhibitions chose to select Sandra’s work for Glasgow International because the quality of photography is outstanding and deserves to be seen by wider audiences. She wrote ‘Stop making assumptions about People/ Start from the level people are based’. Her photography, through her community work, makes visible the groups of people that society has deemed invisible. Each person in Sandra’s photography has their own agency."
"Her perspective and insight as a Black female social documentary photographer in Scotland adds further importance to her archive - women photographers of colour capturing community life in Scotland over this period are significantly underrepresented."
As part of the event programme, Christian Noelle Charles, a Black female artist currently living and working between Scotland, UK and New York, has been selected from an open call for the Sandra George Archive commission to develop an event in response to the archive.
The solo exhibition of Sandra George’s work is part of Glasgow International and takes place at 5 Florence Street, Glasgow until Sunday, June 23. Admission is free.
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