Courtesy of the artistArt & PhotographyNewsGet your hands on a Vinca Petersen printThe renowned photographer shares the stories behind each of the three rare images featured in a new affordable print saleShareLink copied ✔️October 25, 2024Art & PhotographyNewsTextDazed Digital Photographer Vinca Petersen is responsible for some of the most enthralling and evocative photographs of British counterculture. Spending the 90s and early 2000s immersed in the free party and Traveller scene, staging raves and living nomadically across Europe, she was encouraged by her friend Corinne Day to document her extraordinary, transient life. Her archive of images and ephemera form a precious insider’s view of this imperilled way of life before the ridiculous crackdown on ‘repetitive beats’ in the 1994 Criminal Justice Act. Her debut photo book, No System (1999) – which brought together diaristic images from these years on the road – became an immediate classic of contemporary documentary photography. Since then, from her photo book Future Fantasy (2017) to solo exhibitions Raves and Riots (2021) and Me, Us and Dogs, Petersen has remained a dedicated chronicler of micro-communities and subcultures, documenting these worlds with integrity and sensitivity, always drawing pertinent parallels between social movements and political imperatives. Since 2022, Petersen has lived on the remote Isle of Skye. To help fund the project of building a studio space made from straw bales, she’s launching a print sale. The sale consists of three large-scale, high-quality, museum-grade prints, each signed and numbered, in editions of 100. “Most of my works are limited to small editions, which make them inaccessible to some people who might want them in their homes, so I am happy to introduce this more accessible series.” Take a look at the gallery below for Petersen’s three images, along with her personal memories of each shot. 1/3 You may like next 1/3 1/3 Courtesy of the artist Vinca Petersen, Pink Girl and Riot Cops, 2000“The May Day anti-capitalist protest in 2000 turned into a riot. I always found that crossover from peaceful protest to full-blown riot a fascinating moment. Then I spotted this woman standing up to a row of riot police. She seemed to sum it all up, the lone figure trying to fight the system.”view more + 2/3 2/3 Courtesy of the artist Vinca Petersen, Anarchy Sky, 2000“This photo was taken outside the first ever exhibition of photographs from my first book No System. I put on the exhibition myself, with the help of friends, in a disused Rolls Royce garage. Taking over the space to exhibit photos of illegal raves and the travelling folk that put them on, there was a sense of anarchy in the place and when I went outside and looked up, there was literally an Anarchy Sky.”view more + 3/3 3/3 Courtesy of the artist Vinca Petersen, Czech Runway, 2002“We used to put on huge illegal raves in the abandoned Russian military bases all over Eastern Europe, the Russians had left and no one seemed to care we were there. I took this photo in Czech on a military runway the morning after a rave. These free autonomous spaces were such extraordinary places to find – free from authority, abandoned, yet ripe for our creative input.”view more + 0/3 0/3 Prints by Vinca Petersen are available to buy via Edel Assanti’s website, priced at £200 each.