Bootle, Art in Action and Pass the Valium Martha: On Community Photobooks and Positive Self-Expression

This chapter contextualises the community art photobook Art in Action (1980) and studies how it broke with the more overtly politicised model established in Bootle: A Pictorial Study of the Dockland Community (1978). Bootle, a town in the borough of Sefton, on the outskirts of Liverpool, was then undergoing considerable economic decline and suffered from high unemployment. This chapter seeks more especially to underline the importance of positive self-expression and stigma management in the photographic construction of identity when documentary projects are participative or collective rather than invasive. In the 1970s and 80s, “expression” was the keyword of funding bodies to indicate that “art” had been produced. Whilst community photography produced by disadvantaged children in Bootle resulted in creative efforts to produce classically composed pictures (and in so doing achieve a degree of self-reliance and self-esteem, an ability to work in groups and with adults), this chapter proposes instead to apply sociologist Erving Goffman’s theories of positive self-expression to the photographic output. These theories provide a better understanding of the difference between insider and outsider photography. Finally, de-emphasising aesthetic considerations in favour of an approach inspired by writings in sociology allows for a better understanding of how community photography practices enable people to picture themselves socially rather than individually, that is as part of a community rather than as isolated individuals with purely private modes of self-expression.