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Archive: Imagining the East End

A co-authored book that explores photographic representations of the East End as a geographic and imagined space. It draws on material from 'The East End Archive'.

Haeffner’s two essays investigate how in addition to a sober documentary realism, more flamboyant photographic styles including fictional, staged and fantasy images have also been used to represent the East End. In the first essay Haeffner argues that a contemporary archive should be informed by the archival turn in contemporary art, which has problematised the idea of the document and embraced fiction and the role of the imagination in constructing the archive. The essay includes original photographic research at Hoxton Hall Archive.

‘Shadows of Doubt’, which includes photographic work by Haeffner, reflects on an exhibition about Hitchcock’s East End childhood which he curated. Since 2005, Haeffner has published a monograph on Hitchcock; co-curated a set of digital installations inspired by Hitchcock’s 'Vertigo'; talked on a panel of Hitchcock experts in the US; contributed a chapter on ‘Hitchcock and Crime’ to The Blackwell Companion to Crime Fiction and presented the annual Hitchcock lecture at Queen Mary University of London.

Through juxtaposing different images and verbal discourses the book explores the archive and the East End as open and constantly evolving spaces. The images and texts also bear out the central contention that ‘the East End’, which is essentially the product of images and imagination, underwritten by struggles for power.

The book was written by Susan Andrews and Haeffner who worked together on the research, curating the book and the archive. Zelda Cheattle acted as project manager and production editor.