Culture Shift: how it feels to see some of your life on show in a museum

Some notes on an exhibition of work from The Face magazine

Photograph by Elaine Constantine, styled by Polly Banks.

When you die, your life supposedly flashes before your eyes.

I got a preview of how that might feel last week, at the opening of Culture Shift at the National Portrait Gallery. It’s an exhibition of photography — mainly portraits — from The Face magazine, curated by Sabina Jaskot-Gill along with former Face art director Lee Swillingham and photographer Norbert Shoerner.

I started writing for The Face in the early 80s. I joined the staff in 1987, and edited the magazine from 1989–95.

So for me, almost every picture evoked memories. Stories I’d written. Stories I’d spent weeks, sometimes years negotiating. Behind-the-scenes drama. Arguments about cover choices. Late nights desperately trying to make each issue as good as we could on a laughably small budget.

We were so young when we made this magazine.

I wonder if we could do the same thing now.

I certainly wouldn’t have been part of it. I went to university in London, on a full grant. Then I was able to stay in the capital, even though I earned a pittance in…