Handsworth’s stories meet again at Birmingham museum

Arts & Entertainment Desk 2026-10-23 12:48 2 min read

A dramatic 19th-century painting by J.M.W. Turner depicting a carriage in a snowstorm.

Trevor Mathison and Derek Bishton, whose work captured different sides of Handsworth’s social history, visited the Handsworth Stories gallery at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on 22 October. Their visit brought the people behind two landmark works into a space where those works are shown together.

Two works that gave Handsworth a voice

Mathison was the sound designer for Handsworth Songs, John Akomfrah’s film about race, identity and civil unrest in Handsworth, Birmingham and London in 1985. He was also a founding member of the Black Audio Film Collective.

Bishton was a writer and one of the photographers behind the 1979 Handsworth Self-Portrait project. It invited local residents to tell their own stories through photography. Bishton is the only surviving member of the project team, which also included Brian Homer and John Reardon.

The installation brings the works together

At the gallery, the Handsworth Self-Portrait photographs are presented alongside Handsworth Songs. Bishton said the pairing raised questions about who gets to tell a community’s story and how it is represented. Mathison said seeing the film in the exhibition’s context brought its original purpose into focus.

The visit coincides with the 40th anniversary of Handsworth Songs. The film premiered at the Birmingham Film and Television Festival on 24 October 1986. The artists also met the installation’s curator and members of the Birmingham Museums Trust team.

Bishton is working with Dewi Lewis Publishing on a limited hardback edition of photographs from Handsworth Self-Portrait. The project is funded through a Kickstarter campaign due to close on 3 November, according to Birmingham Museums Trust. The visit was part of a wider anniversary programme that also included a workshop and discussion at Birmingham City University’s School of Art and a screening with Q&A at Mockingbird Cinema.

Source: Birmingham Museums Trust Stories

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This report follows Birmingham Museums Trust’s account of the visit, installation and anniversary details.

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Checked the visitors’ roles in the two named works against the supplied source text.
Checked the visit date and film premiere date as stated in the source.
Checked the stated campaign deadline and anniversary programme details.

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