Visible Girls Revisited

Anita Corbin’s extraordinary 1980’s photographic project
Anita commences her search 35 years on for the women who defined their subcultures.

“Back in the 1980s you couldn’t move for images of men in subcultural settings!” says Anita “As a young photographer, I was fascinated by the girls’ colourful and extrovert appearance and their desire to be recognized as part of a larger tribe”.

Anita was also fascinated by the closeness of women’s relationships. “Typically we are led to believe there is competition between women but these girls were all about partnership, about creating an environment together in which young women could express and be themselves, find solidarity and be creative in their dress away from fashion mainstream and stereotypes. Their ‘subcultures’ gave them the opportunity to be subversive in their femininity.”

In her new project Visible Girls: Revisited, Anita has decided to go back and search for the women she had photographed in 1981. She had actually tried to re-photograph the Girls ten years after the project, but couldn’t find them; all she had was old telephone numbers!

The advent of social media provided the ideal opportunity to find these women by posting photos that now had worldwide reach.

‘Visible Girls: Revisited’ is to explore how far these girls have come; have their lives developed as they wished? What has happened in those 35 years? Have their dreams come true and how has world change affected them, their careers and their families?

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Join the search

If you have any information that could help Anita get back in touch with the women from the Visible Girls Collection please contact anita@1stwomenuk.co.uk