Regent's Visiting Lecturer and documentary photographer Marc Vallée has been revisiting his vast archive to bring together a body of images that tell a story of friendship, hedonism and self-expression in 90s Britain.
As a queer art student in London, much of Vallée’s 90s was spent in the capital at the height of its proto-indie sleaze golden years. His latest book, 90s Archive: Volume One brings together pictures shot between 1996 to 1998, many of which have never been seen by the public before.
'I would firmly place the portraits in the tradition of documentary photography but with an autobiographical bent,' Marc told Dazed in a recent interview. 'Over the last 20-plus years, I’ve documented people who in some way disrupt the neoliberal city. My subjects tend to be young, male social transgressors – graffiti writers, skaters, punks and in this case a sex worker,' he explained. 'I’m interested in how they disrupt the capitalist system while in pursuit of their own desires and identities.'
'What can we learn about the present day from the images? Maybe that it’s as vital today to document queer lives as it was in the past. With far-right governments coming to power across Europe and around the world, cabinet ministers deploying culture war rhetoric to attack trans people, we are living in complicated and dangerous times.'
Marc is a Visiting Lecturer in Photography at Regent's University London. His book, 90s Archive: Volume One, is available to purchase here.
