A report by Laura Collinson for Creative Bloom. Follow the link to the original report for additional photographs.

Making Jamaica is an exhibition that explores the ‘new image’ of the country created through photography in the late nineteenth century.

More than 70 historical photographs, lantern slides and stereo cards reveal the “carefully constructed representation of this transitional period in Jamaica’s history. For the first time, its people are depicted as an industrious nation post-emancipation, and their surroundings as a desirable tourist destination and tropical commodity.

“These photographs present an intriguing vision of the ‘unspoiled beauty’ of one of the Caribbean’s major islands during a period of economic and social change, and illustrate the efforts of its local ruling white mercantile elite to bring the island’s valuable resources to the attention of the wider world.”

The archival images are now being exhibited in London for the first time, selected from Patrick Montgomery’s Caribbean Photo Archive. Five large hand-tinted photographs by Ingrid Pollard will respond to the archive, a commission marking the 30th anniversary of her landmark project Pastoral Interludes (1987).

Making Jamaica: Photography from the 1890s is a free exhibition, taking place from 24 February until 22 April 2017 at Autograph ABP, Rivington Place, London, EC2A 3BA. The work has been curated by Dr Mark Sealy MBE and Renée Mussai of Autograph ABP.