PHOTOGRAPHY

The Stop
Sorika Ltd. 2024 ISBN 9781739596453 Acqn 34714
Pb 17x26cm 68pp col ills £20

This new book is based on photographs McConnell took during the February 2003 London Stop
The War Coalition demonstration, held against the war in Iraq. The demonstration was the largest
ever held in the UK, with probably between 750,000 and two million people attending (neither
police, media, or organiser estimates are sufficiently honest to be certain) and was part of an
unprecedented, huge, world-wide series of demonstrations and anti-war events held on the same
day.

McConnell's photographs are of young people present at the demonstration and are consistent
with his previous series that explore youth culture. These series include youth allegiances to
music, drugs, fashion, and political and social identifiers and causes. In The Stop attention is
given to appearance, dress, body language, and signage, and to texts and markings on skin and
clothing, this latter possibly a kind of folk art. Eyes are redacted, as McConnell feels it is a
courtesy to do so. Occasional photographs from McConnell's ongoing flowers series are included,
as a retrospective memento mori - their transience gives emphasis to the over-two-decades years
since the demonstration, and the fragile beauty of its young people, who are now middle aged.

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