Misan Harriman Will Step Down as Southbank Centre Chair

Misan Harriman will step down as chair of the Southbank Centre this autumn, a week after this interview, amid calls for his removal over his social media posts. He announced he will not seek another term. He became chair in July 2021 and is the first Black photographer in the century-long history of British Vogue to shoot the September issue cover.

Speaking to Isaac Huxtable of 1854 Photography, Harriman framed the departure through his refusal, in his words, "to become politically mute in exchange for acceptance" — a phrase he attributes to an article in The Voice newspaper about his role. He offers no detailed account of the campaign against him, and the interview does not specify which posts drew the calls for removal. What is clear is the cost he assigns to principle: as with his idol Gordon Parks, the sumptuous photograph and the vocal photographer do not always mix with ease.

What did Harriman show at Photo London?

At this year's Photo London, Harriman presented The Purpose of Light, a display of protest portraits shot over seven years across three continents. The work featured activism against the genocide in Gaza and the British government's role in the conflict, alongside Black Lives Matter, trans rights protests and environmental activism.

Harriman credits his gallerist, Aki Abiola of Hope 93 gallery, with the concept. "Aki said, we don't always get this captive audience, so let's remind them what's going on in a world that is, frankly, on fire," Harriman said. The booth covered, in his listing: the trans community, climate action, women's rights, the queer community, Black Lives, Gaza, Iran, Afghanistan — and Grenfell.

Harriman says the team did not know whether there would be complaints or calls to shut the booth down. None came, by his account. Instead, he reports an extraordinarily busy booth, visitors naming it their favourite, and people crying. "I don't know if people cry in art fairs," he said. He added that a Black gallerist with a Black artist, showing Black, Brown and Muslim subjects, felt "cathartic and deeply healing" in a fine art world that does not always welcome people of colour. These are his claims; no independent reception data appears in the interview.

Why celebrity portraits were 'not an option'

Harriman's archive includes Steve McQueen, Lewis Hamilton, Diane Abbott, Naomi Campbell, Marcus Rashford, Harrison Ford, Kate Winslet and Jay-Z — plus the Sussexes' baby announcement. He says showing only that work never occurred to him.

"It would have been easy for me just to do big shows of my celebrity portrait portfolio — Harrison Ford, Kate Winslet, Jay-Z. But look outside, people! All of our rights are under attack," he said. He cites Cecil Beaton's Blitz photographs as precedent for glamour photographers turning to crisis, and quotes Nina Simone: "An artist's duty is to reflect the times that we're living in. Everything else is entertainment."

He also names Omar El Akkad's book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This as the text that centred his practice. "I do not believe that there can ever be a child of a lesser God," he said. He describes his online reach as exceeding that of almost any living artist, per an unnamed interlocutor, and says his visible emotion — a 48-year-old Black man weeping over horrors — is the source of trust in his voice. Both claims rest on his own testimony.

How does he photograph Black subjects?

Asked about shooting Black subjects, Harriman points to trust and light. "In Nigeria we have a saying, that we see ourselves," he said. He describes an unspoken language with Steve McQueen — "he's like, have you got it? And I'll say, yeah I got it" — and says the conversation before a shoot can make the image. He uses natural light and says he understands how it falls on Black skin and how melanin reacts to it. No training manual exists for trust, he concedes; he cannot specify one.

What changes for the Southbank Centre?

A prominent Black cultural figure leaves a major institutional post rather than moderate his voice. Harriman keeps his camera, his platform and, by his own account, an audience that crosses borders faster than any world leader's phone call. The open question — who succeeds him, and under what expectations of political silence — the interview does not answer.