London Community Video Archive

The London Community Video Archive (LCVA) collects, preserves and shares community videos made between 1969 and 1994 in London and the South East.

Portable video recording — now a technology routinely embodied in smartphones — became available back in the early 1970s, making it possible for individuals and communities to make their own television. The medium was taken up by people ignored or under-represented in the mainstream media – tenants on housing estates, community action groups, women, black and global majority groups, young people, the LGBTQ+ community and people with disabilities.

When we started in 2016 this rich heritage was under threat of disappearing, both because of the physical decay and disintegration of the tapes, and the ageing memories of the people who made them. Since then, we have been working to collect, digitise, catalogue and archive a selection of community videos, recovering and reviving this history so that it can be used as a resource for contemporary debates and activism.

In addition, we have conducted 30 oral history interviews with a representative sample of people active in Community Video. We also run an outreach and partnership programme of community screenings and events.