Photographer Vinca Petersen is responsible for some of the most enthralling and evocative photographs of British counterculture. Spending the 90s and early 2000s immersed in the free party and Traveller scene, staging raves and living nomadically across Europe, she was encouraged by her friend Corinne Day to document her extraordinary, transient life. Her archive of images and ephemera form a precious insider’s view of this imperilled way of life before the ridiculous crackdown on ‘repetitive beats’ in the 1994 Criminal Justice Act.
Her debut photo book, No System (1999) – which brought together diaristic images from these years on the road – became an immediate classic of contemporary documentary photography. Since then, from her photo book Future Fantasy (2017) to solo exhibitions Raves and Riots (2021) and Me, Us and Dogs, Petersen has remained a dedicated chronicler of micro-communities and subcultures, documenting these worlds with integrity and sensitivity, always drawing pertinent parallels between social movements and political imperatives.
Since 2022, Petersen has lived on the remote Isle of Skye. To help fund the project of building a studio space made from straw bales, she’s launching a print sale. The sale consists of three large-scale, high-quality, museum-grade prints, each signed and numbered, in editions of 100. “Most of my works are limited to small editions, which make them inaccessible to some people who might want them in their homes, so I am happy to introduce this more accessible series.”
Take a look at the gallery below for Petersen’s three images, along with her personal memories of each shot.
Prints by Vinca Petersen are available to buy via Edel Assanti’s website, priced at £200 each.
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