‘This is vandalism on a grand scale,” the photographer Tish Murtha once wrote about the way the Thatcher government had decimated working-class communities in her native north-east England. “Our society has no solution to their problems.”
Through her camera lens, Murtha saw the pain, hardship and turmoil that these communities underwent during periods of stark unemployment and poverty. But she also saw strength, community and unity. The photos she took – be it kids playing knee-high in rubble or unemployed teenagers aimlessly wandering the streets – captured an unflinching raw beauty and intimacy that came from a place of empathy. It was the work of someone who was capturing a community that they were a part of. Indeed, her images often featured her own family members.
