ExhibitionTalkFilm screening
Fri 13 February 2026 – Sat 21 March 2026
Joyce Edwards: A Story of Squatters
EXHIBITION OPENING: Thursday 12 February
TALK: Friday 13 February Dr Shabna Begum and Seema Khalique
Joyce Edwards: A Story of Squatters
Exhibition runs 13 February - 21 March 2026
Opening Times:
Wednesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm. Free and open to all.
How to get here.
This exhibition celebrates a remarkable body of work by the late photographer Joyce Edwards. Shown for the first time, it focuses on an extraordinary grassroots housing movement. Edwards, a Hampstead landlady turned passionate documentarian, ventured into the East End nearly 50 years ago to photograph the young squatters who were transforming derelict streets into vibrant, if precarious, homes.
EXHIBITION TALKS AND SCREENINGS
February 14 | 6.30 - 8.30PM | In Conversation with Dr Shabna Begum and Photographer Seema Khalique. Shabna and Seema will discuss migrant squatting, heritage, belonging and community. Book your place here
March 4 | 6.30 - 8.30PM | Tenants in Revolt
A screening of Tenants in Revolt (1939) and We're Still Here (2021), two films
exploring housing activism in London in the 1930s and today. Followed by a roundtable discussion. Book your place here
March 7 | 2.00PM | Curators' Tour
Join curators' Derek Smith and Pete Bishop for an informal tour of our Story of Squatters exhibition. Book your place here
March 12 | 6.30 - 8.30pm | Feminist Squats and Alternative Spaces
Dr Lucy Brownson is an educator, feminist cultural organiser, and lecturer in archival practices at University College London. She joins us to discuss feminist squatting and activism in 1980s North London. Book your place here
March 19 6.30 - 8.30pm | Tom Hunter and Leonie Rousham in Conversation
Drawing on their own experiences of photographing 1990s squatting communities, and housing campaigns today, photographer Tom Hunter and filmmaker-archivist Leonie Rousham will discuss the role of artists in documenting housing activism. Book your place here
Joyce Edwards passed away in 2023, just months before her hundredth birthday, leaving behind a substantial legacy of fine photographs. Nearly lost to time, a recent discovery and archiving effort has brought her images back into the light.
In the 1970s, Edwards began photographing squats across London, a journey which took her from the affluent Bishops Avenue to the heart of Bethnal Green. There she encountered ‘the Triangle’, three streets near Victoria Park, where empty houses were being squatted by young people seeking an inexpensive way of life. Over 2 years, Edwards took their portraits, creating an intimate and richly detailed record of a unique community.
The squatters' story is one of resilience and self-determination. The community of the Triangle established a Housing Co-op, convincing the Greater London Council to sell them the freeholds to the properties. Today, the Grand Union Housing Co-op continues to thrive. As Pete Bishop says, “The Co-op survives because of the involvement of the members and that we are fully mutual and, crucially, because our 1981 constitution includes a No Right to Buy clause.”
The exhibition brings together Edwards’ compelling portraits of the musicians, painters, actors, students, radicals and local people that occupied the Grand Union squats, alongside photographs taken by the squatters themselves that capture the creativity of Triangle life. Together, these images form an unprecedented visual record of an East London community that refused to disappear.
The exhibition is the culmination the A Story of Squatters project with Grand Union Housing Co-operative (GUHC) and Four Corners, working with filmmaker Derek Smith and Pete Bishop of the GUHC. It is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
PRESS
OTHER EVENTS
We are also hosting Reclaiming Space, a series of film screenings exploring themes of Queer, green, migrant and feminist spaces and the intersections in-between them.
See the What's On page for more information.