Photography: New show at LCC shows young travelling communities of the 90s

Back in the 90s a whole bunch of young people decided it was way more fun to live in old double-decker buses and party non-stop rather than getting an office job and starting a family. Tom Hunter, Professor in Photography Research at the London College of Communication, was one of those travellers and has decided to host an exhibition of photos taken during that time.

“It is 20 years since the Castelmorton free festival, which led to the introduction of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.” Tom tells us, “one of the main agendas of this act was to restrict the assembly and movement of people, spelling the end of the free festival and traveller culture in the UK. I joined the subsequent exodus of travellers in my double-decker bus, Le Crowbar, and captured the life that we experienced whilst travelling on the road in Europe.”

During his time on the bus, Tom met filmmaker Andrew Gaston. “He was travelling in the Apollo Phoebus, an old British Bristol bus, and showing his video projections. We ended up travelling together for the next two summers helping to organise parties and festivals.”

Years later Tom came across the photography of Dave Fawcett and came across photos of the travelling groups (including his own bus) from the 90s. Now the three of them have collated their material together and created a show to champion the good old days of raves, road trips and more raves. The venue? The very place Tom studied and now teaches photography. “It is 20 years since I graduated from the London College of Printing (now the London College of Communication) so it’s interesting to have my second show at LCC 20 years later – my first show as a student and my second as a professor.”

Life on the Road is on show at LCC from 6 – 26 February. For now, you can see the rest of Dave’s enormous online collection of 90s traveller photos here.