| Description | Gelatin-Silver press prints and work prints from the exhibition, as well as prints of photographs taken in Walsall at the time of the exhibition (this includes photographs of Georgina Belfont who was doing a residency at the gallery at the same time as the No Time For Flowers exhibition).
There are pictures of "twilight children" who live on the streets, townships, black people playing bowls, Pan Africanist Congress and African National Congress rallies, concerts, squatter camps, families and Nelson Mandela.
There is also documentary material relating to the exhibition and Vanley Burke's trip to South Africa, including photocopied comment books, catalogues, reviews, correspondence and promotional material, this material shows the thought processes and people involved in setting up the exhibition and tour and how it was promoted.
The main body of the material is from 1990 - 1992, the date range goes up to 2002 as there is some documentary material from the exhibition at the Drum Arts Centre in 2002.
Files /2 to /5 are the files kept on the exhibition and tour while it was happening by Peter Jenkinson, director of Walsall Museum and Art Gallery at the time. |
| AdminHistory | Vanley Burke was given the opportunity to travel to South Africa to photograph the release of Nelson Mandela but, due to problems arranging the travel documents, he was not able to get to South Africa in time. He still went however and photographed the people and situations that he encountered there, in an attempt to capture the "strength, vitality and resilience of Black South African life under Apartheid". He was based in Johannesburg with Rapitsi Montsho, a photographer and one of Burke's friends, and was able to travel the country with the television production company with which Montsho worked; to Soweto, Sharpeville, Bophuthatswana, Cape Town, Welkom, Sibukane, Durban, Crossroads and Langa, thus visiting not only the cities but the townships and squatter camps also.
The title of the exhibition comes from a young woman in Soweto who when asked by Burke why the streets and gardens in the townships were not decorated with flowers or shrubbery, replied "We have no time for flowers".
The exhibition was first held in Walsall Museum and Art Gallery from August to September 1990, and then toured to other galleries including the Cornerhouse Manchester, the Black-Art Gallery London, Handsworth Community Centre Birmingham, and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. It has also shown in the Drum Art Centre Birmingham in 2002.
The exhibition itself incorporated sounds, slides, newspapers and photographic prints, the full exhibition is still housed at Walsall. |