Flat 8 project

In my first year studying Visual Communications (photography and film) at Trent Polytechnic we were given a project to document where we lived. I turned the camera on my fellow flatmates (they were mainly studying Art) in our shared student accommodation at Flat 8, Hampden Street, Nottingham NG1 4FF. The images come from mainly 1980 though I may have continued the project into 1981.

Fun and games

Adam Sulik (left) comes to visit after a trip to the Reject Shop in town. He has bought a rolling ball maze game and lets everyone have a go. After days of frustration Adam got quite good at it…

Flat 8 visitor

I cannot say for certain now but I think the Sheena Easton poster was meant to be ironic rather than a true fan statement.

The poster with Lech Wałęsa of the Polish Solidarity movement was not ironic, there is no doubt we all had a left wing bent, Margret Thatcher had come to power the previous year and was systematically removing the kinder aspects of a civil society, even at our young age we could sense her ideas were based in fear rather than love.

Cooking upset

A pan catastrophe, easy to get distracted in a busy shared flat. Aside from myself and one other the art students in the flat tended to cook communal meals for each other, I was fascinated by their meals based on rice and pasta, being working class I had not come across such things before.

I had come straight from school but the others had spent some time at an art college before Polytechnic, the age/confidence gap felt huge at the time. They were good company though and the collection of records they played expanded my musical horizons.

+ More