The diversity of Govanhill life cries out to be photographed

Sitting between the riverside area of the Gorbals – historically a point of arrival for immigrants – and the expansive public resource that is Queen’s Park, this working-class district can boast that at least 88 languages are spoken by its inhabitants.

The community has been shaped over many generations by the inward migration of people from Ireland, Italy, Jews fleeing the Czarist Russian Empire, people from the Indian sub-continent and, more recently, Kurds, Arabs and Roma from eastern and central Europe, among many others. Comprised largely of tightly arranged streets of tenements, Govanhill has more than its fair share of economic and social problems.

It’s a community that cries out to be photographed. As we see in this major exhibition, photographer Simon Murphy seeks to give expression to the individuality of the people who populate this diverse community. A significant proportion of the black and white images on show here are portrait photographs.

Each one of these pictures is a respectful meditation on the person’s character, and an insistence upon each subject’s right, not only to be considered of interest, but to be represented. In this sense, the exhibition is a celebration of the democratisation of the portrait that was ushered in by the invention of the photographic camera.

Murphy’s individual portraits are as respectful (and at least as intense) as many a Renaissance painting of a king or queen. Take the picture of the young girl named Sara, for instance.

In this photograph, the young girl looks into the camera with a steady gaze and a facial expression that, while sullen, is nevertheless uncertain and inscrutable.

We wonder about what she is thinking just as we do when we see Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Johannes Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring.

The photograph of Lee, a heavily-tattooed man, is taken side-on, in order that the subject can show, not only the tattoos on his neck and head, but also those that swirl around the saltire that has been etched on his shoulder.

There is something disarmingly gentle in this portrait, in which we see the upper half of Lee’s body, naked, exposed, trusting Murphy (and, by extension, us, the viewers) to see him, the man, first, and his extensive tattoo work second.

Thus the picture enables us to see Lee’s bodywork, not as a barrier between him and the world, but as an expression of his personality. It is testament to both Murphy’s humanism and his artistic method that this photograph achieves such a sense of calm and affection.

Diverse though they are, the individual portraits share a common sense of fascination, whether the subject is Dylan (blonde-haired, a ring through their nose, looking into the camera with an expression that is caught somewhere between suspicion and defiance) or Eliza (a young girl who poses with her beautiful, large cat wrapped around her neck). One of the most interesting photos of a single subject is, not a posed portrait, but a moment of transgressive action caught on film.

In this image a young girl, still in school uniform, stands on the street, outside what one assumes is her home, drawing on a cigarette. Her apparently defiant nonchalance adds to the picture’s timelessness. The girl becomes almost iconic, a representative of every rule-breaking teenager there has ever been.

Whilst individual portraits make up a large proportion of the show, there are also pictures of pairings, both of contrasting friends with a shared counter culture (Edith & Dylan) and a number of compelling photographs of identical twins of varying ages. Although the primary focus is on the personalities of the people, Govanhill itself is also a subject.

Simon Murphy surrounded by his Govanhill photographs

A picture of a young girl (Elizabeth) in a raincoat and woolly hat has her standing, like a statue on a plinth, on two wooden pallets beside a mini-market which, typically of Govanhill, boasts that it sells foodstuffs from across Europe and Asia. The social and political activism of the community makes numerous appearances, as the backdrops to Murphy’s shots of people contain anti-racist posters and angry, anti-Tory graffiti prompted by the huge death toll early in the Covid pandemic.

A dignified portrait of an elderly man of South Asian descent is reminiscent of a similar shot taken by the late, great Oscar Marzaroli. Indeed, Marzaroli’s almost forensic compassion connects with Murphy’s work in many ways.

Nowhere is that clearer than in Bike Boys, a lovely picture of four wee boys, seemingly of different ethnic backgrounds, out playing on the streets of Govanhill on their bikes. The children are looking, not at the camera, but at something that’s happening out of shot, off to our right. One of the boys seems amused, grinning and sticking out his tongue. Another appears to be sceptical as to why this scene might be entertaining, whilst the other two seem contrastingly intrigued and impassive.

As with the fag-smoking schoolgirl, this image has a gloriously timeless quality about it. In a world of smartphones and computer game consoles that seems hell-bent on individuating, almost de-socialising children, here we have a bunch of boys, playing out on the street as generations have before them.

It is a collective moment, in which we see both the character of the group and the individual characteristics of the kids. It is a picture that, in its sympathy and its skill, deserves to be considered alongside Marzaroli’s classic 1963 photograph The Castlemilk Lads.

This is an exhibition of pictures that are democratic, humanistic, gently subversive and beautifully expressive of the magnificently diverse characters that make up Govanhill. The shots are, variously, perfectly set-up and cleverly caught. Together, they make for a marvellous exhibition that is a credit to Murphy and the community that is his subject.

Govanhill is At Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow until January 27: www.streetlevelphotoworks.org