Islington

During the time Serena Wadham lived in Islington from the 1960s to 1987, the borough became increasingly mixed, with a large white working-class population rubbing shoulders with incoming young professionals and increasing numbers of new immigrants.  Serena Wadhams's flat in Noel Road was a few minutes walk from the Regent's Park Canal, Islington's crowded shopping streets and markets, and the new high-rise Packington Estate.  The grittiness of her many street photographs now seems reminiscent of -and was perhaps influenced by- contemporary TV docu-dramas such as 'Cathy Come Home' and 'Edna the Enebriate Woman'.  She made many images of children, a subject that -even for a female photographer- would be problematical today.