Buffalo: Future Generation by Jamie Morgan at new arts centre Ladbroke Hall

A welcome addition to the area is the immense new arts centre Ladbroke Hall on Barlby Road. Covering 43,000 square feet of space, the centre is housed in a building that used to be the headquarters of the Sunbeam Talbot Motor Company, which was the first purpose-built car factory and showroom in Britain. Ladbroke Hall is to become a base for creative expression, focussing on contemporary art, collectable design, dance,  dining, theatre, music and much more. The centre will be led by the founders of Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Loïc Le Gaillard and Julien Lombrail.

This month’s exhibition Buffalo: Future Generation is a taster of Ladbroke Hall’s cultural programme, which will present the most cutting-edge talent across music, theatre, film, dance and art from September onwards.

Exhibition – Buffalo: Future Generation

Buffalo: Future Generation will feature the latest body of work by renowned British photographer Jamie Morgan. Taking place from 29th June to 15th July, this is a charitable event for The Dalgarno Trust, a community centre in the heart of Ladbroke Grove.

The exhibition of 30 new portraits presents an ongoing photographic project that revisits the radical Buffalo movement, which Morgan co-founded with stylist Ray Petri and which originated in 1980s Ladbroke Grove. Buffalo reflected on the generation emerging from an era of depression in the 1980s that was radically intent on self-expression through punk and DIY. The exhibition looks at the current generation of young people in Ladbroke Grove, featuring child protagonists, looking nonchalant and representing the diversity of British youth today. As well as portraying young people found through street-casting, it also includes the children of Morgan’s friends, including those of Kate Moss, Ozwald Boateng and Annie Morris.

The exhibition is free to the public and is also a charitable event with proceeds from single-edition print sales going to The Dalgarno Trust.

About Jamie Morgan

Morgan began his photographic career in the late 1970s as a teenager, photographing the emerging New Romantic cultural wave on the streets of London. Morgan is best known for adopting street casting in new ways and rejecting binary gender conformity in his life-long photographic celebration of individuality and agency for all. His first subjects were the icons of gender non-conformity, including Boy George, Steve Strange, Marilyn amongst others.

The name of the movement stems from a Caribbean expression that Petri adopted which was used to describe rude boys and rebels. Buffalo clashed gender, age and cultural stereotypes to better reflect the diversity and lived experiences of British youth culture. It styled tough men with skirts and boots, combined utility sportswear with high fashion, cast boys as girls and children as adults.

Buffalo: Future Generation
29th June – 15th July 2023
Ladbroke Hall
79 Barlby Road
W10 6AZ
ladbrokehall.com/live-programme/exhibition/buffalo-future-generation-by-jamie-morgan