Paul Graham's renowned series, 'Beyond Caring', was made in the waiting rooms and corridors of the Social Security and Unemployment offices around the UK, documenting the long waits, queues and poor conditions of an overburdened system, to produce a powerful series of photographs conveying the hardship people experienced. Denied official permission to make the work, Graham's photographs were taken discreetly, usually without looking through the camera, resulting in a spatial disorientation that emphasised the unmoored distress of vulnerable citizens. The work shocked many on its release - leading Magnum photographers were outraged by its use of colour in a classic documentary topic, while others celebrated how it straddled the world of activism and art. Graham forged a fresh form of engaged photography, mixing elements of social documentary, 'new colour' and reportage to create a striking body of work that endures to this day. Many decades have passed since their making in 1984, but these images have grown not only in photographic importance, but also as a unique historic record of the mid-1980s unemployment crisis in the UK. "The book is one of the key works defining the New Colour Documentary in the UK, and represents the most overtly documentary side of Graham's practice. The work was shot all over Britain during 1984 and 1985, and shows a welfare and benefits system under immense stain towards the end of Magaret Thatcher's premiership of the Conservative government. Graham's images show all the tedium and humiliation incumbent upon being unemployed and forced to wait long hours in drab, run-down government centres for a weekly handout from the state. It is a rite of passage that many young artists (including Graham) undergo and the bitter tone of his images reflects that personal experience, as well as his outrage at a system that humiliates both the recipients and its operators. Graham shot these dole offices in colour, in a surreptitious manner that seemed to place him both as a spy and as a protagonist" Listed in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger : The Photobook Vol. 2, p. 300 Condition: Very good first edition copy of this very important photobook. Small piece of laminate peeling on cover. Cover edges slightly worn. Please examine listing photos carefully.