Mimi Mollica’s beautiful and impulsive new photo book takes a microscopic look at East London

With his latest photographic series, East London Up Close, published by Hoxton Mini Press as part of its ongoing endeavour to purvey accessible and affordable photography books, Mimi has truly used his lens like a microscope, capturing extraordinary tableaus of the uniquely contrasting and surprisingly harmonious across the vivid backdrop of East London.

The result is an ecstatic, joyful and candidly awkward capture of a diverse community that has an almost evidential and confrontational feel. With a tone that is both uncomfortable and familiar, it is as if we are being granted access to something that we’ve been ignoring all along: all ingrained with spontaneity and liveliness found in the streets, people, architecture, wildlife and warmth that, similarly to Mimi, calls East London their home.

This humanity and giddiness are alive in his portraits and landscapes, where Mimi finds an eclectic authenticity in the smallest scene and beautifully contrasts the aggressive and the soft. In the end, Mimi’s work is fundamentally human; it feels impulsive and instinctual, all whilst finding wonderfully captivating moments in seemingly mundane environments.

East London Up Close is released on 18 March, available from and published by Hoxton Mini Press, featuring an introduction from Rachel Segal Hamilton.