Work Stations 1986 – 88
A study of London Office life in (Margaret) Thatcher’s 1980’s Britain. Using colour photographs and texts, parodying the style of magazine journalism, this work posited a satirical view of contemporary Southern England in the grips of conservatism and on the verge of a series of political commitments that would direct our future economy on the downward spiral it still, today, drifts hopelessly down into. Fox was part of the New British colour documentary movement in the UK and, at the time, was the only woman in this group. Her work was influenced by the New colourists in the US, and by both Karen Knorr and Bill Owens who used a combination of text and image to inject a third, often political, meaning into their works.
Work Stations was photographed over 2 years in over 40 London offices and was commissioned by Camerawork Gallery and the Museum of London. At the time of shooting Margaret Thatcher’s right wing government was in power and her catch all phrase was
“there is no such thing as society, there are just individuals”
this statement framed the nature of those times and affected the whole of Britain’s future economy. Thatcher sold all our government housing and made disastrous changes to our National institutions. Most famously she embarked on the Falklands war and started the Poll tax (taxing individuals for living) which in the end brought her down.
Work Stations was published as a book by Camerawork in 1988 with texts by Sunil Gupta and Jack Latimer
Work from the series is in the collections of:
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA.
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Randstadt, Netherlands
The Museum of London, UK
The British Council, UK
Musée de la Photographie, Charloi, Belgium,
Galerie Le Lieu, Lorient, France
The Hyman Collection, London, UK
