18 August 2026
Launching on August 27th and running through to 2nd September, Carnival 60: Ian Watts at Outernet is a brand new immersive installation using the Notting Hill Carnival photo archive of renowned and award-winning photographer Ian Watts.
Ian’s work will be transformed into an incredible visual experience across the immense Outernet screens and is free to visit.
Ian Watts said: “The Outernet exhibition is the culmination of a long photographic journey. It is particularly meaningful to see photographs made with humble analogue cameras and film in the 1970s and 1980s displayed alongside my more recent digital images. These photographs span generations of technology, but the people, energy, creativity and spirit of Carnival connect them all. For me, this is more than an exhibition of photographs. It is a record of a community, a culture and a changing London. It is a personal journey that began with a second-hand camera and has continued through many years of photography and filmmaking.”
Carnival 60: Ian Watts at Outernet opens with a montage of vibrant, full-colour imagery from recent Carnivals. Black-and-white photographs from Ian’s first visits to Carnival in the 1970s then fill the immense Outernet screens. The piece moves into a new collection of pictures spanning the 80s and 90s followed by the installation transitioning into a collage of Ian’s images from 2000–2019. This period showcases the rapid growth of Carnival, as everything scaled up from the yet more breathtaking costumes to even bigger block rocking sound systems. The final sequence transports the audience to the Carnival of today completing the visual trip though one of the most iconic events in the world.
Ian’s own Carnival story is a remarkable one. He bought his first camera in the summer of 1976 as a young teenager just out of school. At the time, he was living in a youth hostel in Harlesden, North WestLondon and taking photographs of the local area and things that caught his artistic eye. Some of his friends that year suggested that he check out the Notting Hill Carnival. He decided to go and take his recently purchased second hand camera along, not knowing that he was about to begin an epic photographic journey that would last for many years to come. Ian has attended and documented through his pictures every Notting Hill Carnival since 1976 bar one