Carnaby Street, 19 Sept 1991 © Phil Polglaze
During the Section 28-era in Britain, photographer Phil Polglaze documented public toilets across London. Made on commission by criminal defence lawyers to aid men on trial for ‘cottaging’, the photographs were used in the court room to disprove police prosecution statements and exonerate clients.
Recently resurfaced, this unique visual archive made between 1979 and 1996 casts a new light on queer history and the struggle for gay rights in Britain. By demonstrating sightlines and spatial structures, Polglaze’s images depict public lavatories as seemingly mundane yet highly charged spaces that helped to produce (alternative) truths.
Bog Jobs tells a story of cruising, queer pleasure, (de)criminalisation of homosexuality and police entrapment tactics in late twentieth-century Britain whilst challenging familiar ideas of truth and (counter)evidence in photography.
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Phil Polglaze is a self-taught London photographer whose early commission to support the defence in 'cottaging' cases with photographs of London's public toilets taken between the 1970s and 1990s has created an unprecedented archive.
Jilke Golbach is a curator, writer and researcher with a specific interest in art and photography at the intersection of personal narratives and systemic critique. She currently works at FOAM, Amsterdam, and has previously worked as a curator at the Rijksmuseum, Museum of London, and Barbican Art Gallery. She holds a PhD from University College London.
Bradley was awarded the British Sports Photograph of the Year (People’s Choice, 2024) and was a World Sports Photography Awards Finalist in 2025. He is currently based between the Midlands and Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom.
Phil Polglaze
Bog Jobs
The Jolly Farmers
20 Paradise St,
Oxford,
OX1 1LD
25 October–
16 November
