Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors was a collaboration between three photographers, Ursula Kelly, Huw Nicholls and James Lane, graphic designer John Reeves, and Professor Jon May of Queen Mary University of London. The 2018 exhibition, on behalf of End Hunger UK, explored the nature and scale of food insecurity in Britain and shared some of the experiences of those living through this crisis. The show toured UK cities ending up in the Houses of Parliament in an attempt to influence government policy.

The photographs are deliberately styled to resonate, but also jar, with the glossy pictures of perfect plates of food that fill our magazines and cookbooks.

The ‘dishes’ selected for display were decided by the meals people living with household food insecurity have described eating. These personal testimonies were taken from a selection of accounts by people living with household food insecurity shared with volunteers and workers at Magic Breakfast, Trussell Trust food banks, and Voices from the Margins, and with a number of academic researchers working on food insecurity in London, Bradford, and Stockton-On-Tees.