HANDSWORTH THROUGH SOUTHERN EYES. Photographs by George Hallett, 1972. NO TIME FOR FLOWERSREDEMPTION SONG. Photographs by Vanley Burke

Photographs capture the ephemeral: a fleeting moment, expression, event or long-gone building. They offer a powerful link to the past and chronicle change in people’s lives. That’s why Pete James, head of photography at Birmingham Central Library, is fanatical about collecting, archiving and displaying photographs.

James has been working on an ambitious project for several years to link Birmingham with its twin city, Johannesburg, by exchanging archives and photographic exhibitions. One will mark Black History Month and opens at the city’s Soho House Museum next week; the other will open at Museum Africa in Johannesburg in December. The key players are Jamaican-born Vanley Burke, who grew up in Handsworth, the multi-racial inner-city suburb of Birmingham plagued by riots in the Eighties, and George Hallett, born in Cape Town, who was classified “coloured” by the infamous apartheid regime.

The connection seems tenuous. But by chance, Hallett’s first commission after exiling himself to London from a culturally stifling, oppressive South Africa in 1970, came from The TES a year later. As a young, inexperienced picture editor, I mischievously asked him to photograph Arthur Jensen, the controversial American professor who claimed American blacks had lower IQs than whites. Hallett recalls exclaiming: “You want me to photograph a racist?”

“You come from the world capital of racism, you’ll know how to handle him,” was the approximate reply. (Jensen later called him “an artist” and asked Hallett to photograph him when his second book was published.) The result was a stunning picture, and many more assignments followed. One memorable picture showed two little boys outside a grocery shop. This proved to be another piece of serendipity.

Pete James and Vanley Burke had met Hallett during separate visits to South Africa which led to proposals for the exchange project. At a subsequent meeting at the British Council (one of the sponsors) in London last year, Hallett was showing his 1972 Handsworth collection to Burke and wondered if anyone would remember the people he photographed.

“I can tell you who those two are - they’re my brothers, and that’s my mother’s shop,” he replied. Gary (pictured above right) works for a fire alarm firm; Andrew (left) is an advisory teacher in Tower Hamlets.) Hallett looks back on the early 1970s with affection.“I arrived in London in the age of Aquarius - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Carnaby Street, hippies. South Africa was a mental and physical prison. Culture was dead: artists, writers, musicians had left; I had no outlets for my photography. In London, I met people from all over the planet; and the other amazing thing was I could work.” He worked on The TES with women editors. “What a change from the male-dominated world of South Africa.”

Thus, he says, he was able to see much of England, and recalls photographing a “co-operative Margaret Thatcher” when she was education secretary. “She gave me an exclusive picture when she judged a cookery competition.”

Hallett left for France in 1974, where he married and took up farming alongside freelance photography. Over the next 10 years he lived and worked in Zimbabwe, Amsterdam, Paris and the United States. When apartheid began to crumble he returned to South Africa and chronicled the ANC’s rise to power. He has settled in Cape Town.

Kader Asmal, the education minister, recently asked him to plan a centre for a contemporary collection of South African photography for which he has enlisted the help of Pete James. He has also been asked to train teachers in the Western Cape in photographic techniques.

The two photographers share James’s passion to document local people and their communities. Burke has spent the past 30 years chronicling the lives of black people in Birmingham. “I’d rather buy film than eat,” he explains. His vast archive is now, at James’s request, in the Central Library, where he hopes local people will use it.

When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, Burke financed a trip to South Africa which resulted in an exhibition, No Time for Flowers, which is running at The Drum gallery in Aston as part of Black History Month. He returned to South Africa in 1996 to photograph veterans of the struggle against apartheid, including Mandela, which will be exhibited in Johannesburg in December. His next project is to record the lives of Birmingham’s Asian community.

Hallett’s exhibition features 50 black and white pictures of street scenes: a striking one of two middle-aged women, one black, one white, leaning on their brooms, chatting, is a favourite. “I never saw that happen back home.” He hopes it will not only provide local people with a nostalgic look back, but will “motivate school children to become the next generation of collectors and curators of black history”.

The exhibition will be accompanied by workshops and talks by Hallett and Burke with schools and community groups, and staff from the New Opportunities Fund project Digital Handsworth will put his pictures on their website to encourage people to talk about themselves and the places photographed. On a more basic level, Hallett hopes his work will serve as a reminder to aspiring photographers of the importance of preserving negatives. “Whatever one does can become a part of history,” he says.

‘Handsworth through Southern Eyes’, photographs by George Hallett, 1972: Soho House Museum, Handsworth; www.photoexchange.org October 12 to January 12 2003.‘No Time for Flowers’ by Vanley Burke, The Drum (main gallery), 144 Potters Lane, Aston, until November 8.‘Redemption Song’ by Vanley Burke, Birmingham Symphony Hall, (level 4 foyer), until November 1, 0121 200 2000. www.birminghamblackhistory.com; Tel: 0121 303 3022; www.digitalhandsworth.org.uk (after close of the exhibition)

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

* Children throughout the UK can read specially commissioned pieces from African writers - and have the chance to win pound;100 of books. The internet residency is linked to a tour, African Visions 2002, co-ordinated by the Africa Centre in association with the African Books Collective, with support from the Arts Council of England. Young readers can email pieces about childhood to the site - www.africacentre.org.ukafricanvisions2002.htm - get a response from the authors and enter a competition. The writers are Charles Mungoshi, Shimmer Chinodya, Meshack Asare and Buchi Emecheta.The tour takes in Leicester, Guildford, Cheltenham and London.Tel: 020 7836 1973.

Events include

* Vamp;A: Hidden Histories Gallery Trail; Black Victorians in Britain - images, discussion, web exploration, October 26; performances and music workshops and Black Spirituals at Hoxton Hall, October 13; art and craft, including Caribbean Cake Affair on October 26-27; fashion, film, photography and literary events. Tel: 020 7942 2197, www.vam.ac.uk.l Theatre Museum symposium: Finding the Gaps, Black Women in British Theatre 1790-1950, October 24, and free schools workshops. Tel: 020 7943 4740, www.theatremuseum.org.uk.

* Museum of Childhood: The Golly, an illustrated talk, October 12, and storytelling and children’s workshops in African dance, drumming and jewellery-making. Tel: 020 8980 2415, www.museumofchildhood.org.uk.

* The Dance Theatre of Harlem will present a lecture-demonstration, a chance to look behind the scenes of New York’s premiere African-American classical dance company at City Hall, London SE1. This is part of the Mayor of London’s programme for Black History Month. www.london.gov.uk.

* Events in the North-west include Forgotten Histories at the Imperial War Museum North. Full details: www.actsofachievement.org.uk.