No Way To Make A Living is a sociological space about work, generating discussion and exchange on what work, paid or unpaid, is like in today’s world

The Work­ing Lives of Lon­don­ers is a series of pho­to­graphs by Har­riet Arm­strong on dis­play at City Hall (22 March to 7 May 2010) which shows Lon­don­ers ‘going about their daily routine in the cap­ital’ (The Guard­ian). A selec­tion of images was pub­lished in The Guard­ian in March, but more can be seen on Har­riet Armstrong’s web­site. There are some quirky and ori­ginal images and together they make an inter­est­ing con­tri­bu­tion to the recog­ni­tion of work in today’s world, and some of the spaces that people inhabit in their every­day work­ing lives.

A num­ber of the images are por­traits, includ­ing of people who are in the pub­lic realm, such as Shami Chakra­barti, Dir­ector of Liberty, and Boris John­son, Mayor of Lon­don (who I happened to see going into City Hall just as I was leav­ing this after­noon!). In other por­traits we can under­stand work by the con­text within the image, for instance the police­man stand­ing out­side Num­ber 10 Down­ing Street, or work­ers posed amongst theatre props. In these types of pho­to­graph, the worker and the job are one (for now at least) and the por­trait of the per­son in their work­ing envir­on­ment car­ries the idea of what it is they do in their work­ing lives.

The com­pos­i­tion of some of the pho­to­graphs is stim­u­lat­ing for think­ing about work soci­olo­gic­ally. In one image, a Neon Light engin­eer, sus­pen­ded along­side a build­ing, is pic­tured from below, the sky becom­ing the back­drop to his work­ing world. He looks alone up there, only tenu­ously con­nec­ted to the world as he holds onto the light he is work­ing on, although in another image, someone else appears to be keep­ing an eye on him from the ground. We can’t see exactly what the light engin­eer is doing so we don’t get an insight into the activ­ity of work per se but we do get some sense of what his work­ing life is like from see­ing him in the sky like that. The stun­ning pic­ture of the rope access abseiler clean­ing the No 1 Lon­don Bright Build­ing is equally evocative.

Although the image of statue clean­ers is taken peer­ing into a vehicle, what looks like a har­ness on one of the work­ers sug­gests that his work also takes him off the ground. His co-worker, seen snooz­ing in the back­ground, is tak­ing a moment out, and this draws our atten­tion to the ways in which work­ing routines include pauses, and are shot through with other activ­it­ies and meanings.

The mater­i­al­ity of work is very present in the pho­to­graphs too. The cinema pro­jec­tion­ist at the Bar­bican is seen sur­roun­ded by and con­nec­ted to his equip­ment, as is the fire-fighter, whereas the organ tuner at the Royal Albert Hall must quite lit­er­ally get inside the object of his labour.

Work is not presen­ted in these pho­tos in the restric­ted ways we some­times see it cel­eb­rated, mostly of men doing dan­ger­ous things, how­ever fas­cin­at­ing images of these worlds are. Bell-ringers – pre­sum­ably an unpaid com­mit­ment – are shown in per­fect coordin­a­tion in a space lit by what looks like early morn­ing sun­shine. The hairdresser in a centre for home­less people might be there on a vol­un­tary basis or as an employee. Over­all, the col­lec­tion tran­scends rigid cat­egor­ies of work, includ­ing artis­ans, garden­ers and protest­ors along­side teach­ers and engin­eers. These pho­to­graphs encour­age us to ask ques­tions about the basis on which work is under­taken, and to recog­nise the enorm­ous range of work that goes on in London.

Over­all, this series is a refresh­ing look at what we do from a young woman pho­to­grapher. Thank you, Har­riet Armstrong.