Following a commission by Photoworks and Ffotogallery, Tim Brennan has produced a body of work that explores ideas generated during a residency at the Mass Observation Archive.

The Archive results from the work of an experimental social research organisation founded in 1937 with the objective of creating ‘an anthropology of ourselves’.

The first part of this book is a series of photographs based around the theme of ‘Unprofessional Painting’ – a reference to the work of the Ashington Miners who exhibited in London during the 1940s – the second is a complete reproduction of The Lethbridge report – an idiosyncratic document on fifth-column or espionage activity taking place in Cambridgeshire during the 1940s.