Fashion designer and multidisciplinary artist Mei-Hui Liu revisits more than 25 years of creative history in MEMORY LAND: SPITALFIELDS, an exhibition exploring the intersection of fashion, photography, collaboration and place. Unfolding across three locations in East London—House of Annetta, Town House on Fournier Street and 49 Fashion Street—the exhibition brings Liu’s extensive photographic archive back to the historic streets and interiors where much of the work was originally created.
Featuring photographs from the early 2000s, including fashion shoots made between 2000 and 2004, MEMORY LANDoffers an intimate portrait of Spitalfields as a meeting point for artists, designers, photographers, makers and craftspeople. More than a retrospective of Liu’s own practice, the exhibition celebrates the collaborative spirit of an East London creative community, tracing connections between generations of women artists and cultural figures, including celebrated writer and designer Jocasta Innes, artist Marianna Kennedy and photographer and curator Maryam Eisler.
Through fashion imagery shaped by historic architecture, domestic interiors and the people who inhabited them, Liu reveals how clothing, photography and place became inseparable in her work. The exhibition also revisits her pioneering approach to upcycled fashion through Victim Fashion Street, the independent label she established in the early 2000s, long before sustainability became a defining conversation within the fashion industry. With collections presented at London Fashion Week and through the British Fashion Council’s Estethica initiative, Liu developed a multidisciplinary practice that continues to connect fashion with performance, photography and artistic collaboration.
Rather than confining these memories to a conventional gallery retrospective, MEMORY LAND: SPITALFIELDS invites visitors to rediscover the archive within the neighbourhood that shaped it.
MEMORY LAND looks at the wider creative community surrounding the work: the artists, designers, makers, photographers, hair and make-up artists and craftspeople who came together in East London to create something collectively. The exhibition also traces Mei-Hui’s relationships with generations of women artists connected to Spitalfields. Her early creative life included time living and working in the home of celebrated writer and designer Jocasta Innes, while later collaborations brought her together with artists including Marianna Kennedy and Maryam Eisler.
Historic interiors, streets and homes around Fournier Street and Spitalfields repeatedly became settings for Mei-Hui’s fashion imagery, allowing architecture, clothing, people and place to become inseparable within the photographs.
When I look back at these photographs, I don’t just see my own work. I see all the people who were part of it — the artists, designers, makers, hair and make-up artists, and the incredible women who made Spitalfields their creative home across different generations. There was something very special happening here. We were constantly collaborating, using the streets, houses and each other’s creativity to make new work. MEMORY LAND is my way of celebrating those memories and all of the people who made them possible.” Mei-Hui Liu
A Creative Life Rooted in Spitalfields
Mei-Hui established Victim Fashion Street on Fashion Street in the early 2000s, developing an independent practice combining upcycled fashion, photography, performance and collaboration long before sustainability became mainstream fashion language. Her collections went on to be presented at London Fashion Week and through the British Fashion Council’s Estethica initiative, while her wider practice continued to develop through exhibitions, performance and multidisciplinary collaborations. MEMORY LAND returns that history to its original geography. Rather than placing the archive behind glass in a conventional retrospective, visitors are invited to move through part of Spitalfields itself.
Three Spaces, One Memory Land
HOUSE OF ANNETTA
The central exhibition brings together archival photography, garments, stories and installation exploring Mei-Hui’s early practice, personal memories and relationship with Spitalfields.
TOWN HOUSE — 5 FOURNIER STREET
Set within one of Spitalfields’ historic streets, Town House offers another encounter with the exhibition alongside its tearoom and shop — returning Mei-Hui’s imagery to the architectural landscape that repeatedly inspired her work.
49 FASHION STREET
Visitors can return to the street where Victim Fashion Street began and experience the archive in motion through an opportunity to dress in selected Mei-Hui creations and take part in a photoshoot. Together, the three locations transform MEMORY LAND from a conventional exhibition into a journey through the neighbourhood itself. Part personal archive and part cultural portrait, the exhibition asks what photographs, clothes, buildings and personal memories can tell us about a creative community — and what remains when a neighbourhood changes around it.
MEMORY LAND: SPITALFIELDS runs from 29 October – 6 November 2026 in Spitalfields, East London.
Locations: House of Annetta, Town House, 5 Fournier Street, London E1 6QE and 49 Fashion Street, London E1 6PX.
Find further information and book tickets here.
