The National Science and Media Museum reopened to the public on Wednesday, 8 January 2025. This soft launch was followed by a full day of events and activities on Saturday, the 11th. The re-opening was timed to coincide with the offical launch of Bradford's year as UK City of Culture. 

The reopening was partial in the sense that the two major new galleries Sound and Vision are still being installed and will open in the summer, most likely in June, in time for the last few weeks of the school year and the summer holidays.

On Saturday I was at the head of a fifty-plus strong queue of families and others waiting to enter the museum. There was a second queue at the Pictureville entrance. The animation-themed day celebrated the work of the Aardman studios with screenings of Wallace and Gromit films and activities based around animation. 

The revamped museum foyer is a more welcoming space. It is now less cluttered, with better visibility in to it from the outside, and with seating to encourage visitors to relax and linger. The visitor/ticketing desk is 'softer' than the previous desk and more inviting. The large media wall has gone. On the far side, to the right, is a quiet space, on the left a smaller retail space with more activity toys for children, some museum branded objects, and just a few books relating to the Hockney exhibition that opens on the 15th. The wider book offer of museum publications and general books on photography, film and television have gone. Beyond this is the café selling Costa coffee, snacks and meals. That is largely unchanged, and beyond that is the Pictureville cinema which had remained open for much of the museum's closure from June 2023. The IMAX cinema entrance remains accessible from the entrance foyer as before. 

And on to the galleries... The Kodak Gallery (-1 level) remains largely unchanged - or, at least, only with minor tweaks and changes.As before, the reflex camera obscura and Giroux camera greet visitors on entry. The Jabez Hogg/Beard studio recreation and original daguerreotype remain, but some of the early photographic equipment has been removed to accommodate the new lift (the cause of the delayed reopening). As one walks through the Kodak gallery the previous wet-plate studio space has been repurposed recreating Bradford's important Belle Vue studio. Engaging with local communities is a theme that will run through all the galleries. The Victorian parlour, darkroom and studio office remains. The main part of the gallery looking at Kodak cameras and popular photography remains much as it was, although the early three-colour cinematographic camera has gone. Circulating through the beach and pier displays, salon photography and amateur cameras from the 1950s brings the visitor to the 1980s and on to the digital revolution. This remains the weakest part of the displays, mainly because it stops in the early 2000s and digital photography's cameras and the ways we share images have evolved significantly since then. The internet and digital displays previously in the foyer have not been brought back. 

Insight, the museum's research and visitor object handling and collections-access space, and the Kraszna-Krausz room are beyond and remain closed, at least until the new galleries open. 

Moving to the upper levels: level 1 retains the Cubby Broccoli cinema in which curators were showcasing the Sound and Vision galleries and showing off objects from the museum collections. Next to this is The Connection Engine (curiously missing from the museum signage, perhaps suggesting it is temporary?) which allows users to investigate Bradford's own history through an interactive screen. Alongside is a large digital display of objects that asks us to think about the future of history. The special exhibitions space remains closed for installation work.  

Level 2 houses the special exhibiton space that opens with David Hockney: Pieced Together exhibition from 15 January until 18 May 2025.

On level 3 is a renewed Wonderlab with interactive exhibits for children and adults to learn about sound, vision and science. This level will also house new Sound and Vision galleries in due course. Level 4 is Makespace, a space primarily for school groups to undertake practical activities which on Saturday visitors were using to make animation figures. Levels 5 and 6 remain closed for Sound and Vision and Power Up galleries, respectively.

Saturday was a lively day, helped by a brass band, screenings and activities around the museum spaces, including object handling experiences and the making ghost photographs. Over the next few months the museum has an engaging offer for families and visitors. Some areas will be familiar, others less so. Listening in to conversations from visitors, who were mainly local, they seemed pleased to see the familiar parts of the museum return and Wonderlab was very popular. There was clearly a lot of affection for the museum. The improved spaces, ground floor toilets, and especially the foyer mark a real improvement for visitors. Museum volunteers were also pleased to be back and engaging with visitors. 

Much of the £6 million spend has been on parts of the museum building fabric that will be less obvious to the public: fixing roof leaks, fire and safety upgrades, new flooring, and that troublesome new lift. The Pictureville link to the main museum will need further work in due course as reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) was discovered during the closure and needs to be dealt with. For now the space has been made safe.

The two new galleries which visitors will see and engage with have yet to open, but based on the partial re-opening, they promise much. That said, when they do open they will draw attention to the need to update the Kodak Gallery which is well beyond its originally projected lifespan - although it remains popular and is object rich which visitors appreciate. 

The introduction to the Sound and Vision galleries given by Head Curator Dr Charlotte Connelly on Saturday emphasised the new themes that will be behind the galleries (a short film will explain more). They will be worth waiting for. For the museum, embedded as part of the wider Science Museum Group it will be delivering on its remit of 'exploring the transformative impact of image and sound technologies on our lives', and engaging with local communities using local examples to do this.

See: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/

Sound and Vision project: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/about-us/sound-and-vision-project

All images: © Michael Pritchard. Views from the newly re-opened museum spaces (more are available) and a portrait of Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Museum Director. 

In 2023 the Janette Rosing English photography collection was allocated to Historical England under the government's Acceptance in Lieu scheme. During the same year a collection of material relating to Julia Margaret Cameron was also hnadled by the reviewing committee and transferred to the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. 

The 2024 report notes: A collection of 18 Modern British works, a group of eight prints and a book of photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79) was a pioneering female photographer in the 19th century and was particularly notable for her soft-focus close-up portraits of eminent Victorians. She only took up photography at the age of 48 after her daughter gave her a camera as a present.

The Hewat volume of eight albumen prints gives an indication of the range of Cameron’s subject matter and includes a portrait of the early photographer, mathematician and astronomer Sir John Herschel (1792–1871), as well as Pre-Raphaelite-inspired images of a number of Cameron’s friends. The collection of 20th-century British art put together by Anne (a direct descendant of Julia Margaret Cameron) and Angus Hewat focuses on such significant artists as the brothers Paul (1889–1946) and John Nash (1893–1977), Eileen Agar (1899–1991), Graham Sutherland (1903– 80), John Craxton (1922–2009) and the pioneering printmaker Cyril Power (1872–1951).

It will make a welcome addition to Pallant House’s outstanding holdings of this period. The Hewats were long-standing supporters of the Gallery and had assisted with the acquisition of the New Wing site which made possible the 2006 capital development of Pallant House.

The Panel considered the collection, accepted from the estate of Anne and Angus Hewat, pre-eminent under the first, second and third criteria. It has been permanently allocated to Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, in accordance with the condition attached to its offer.

The tax value was £316,890. 

The government's Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) Scheme and Cultural Gifts Scheme (CGS) enable UK museums, galleries, libraries and archives to acquire significant objects, in most cases at no cost to themselves. Managed by the Arts Council of England the 2023 report has just been published and there are two entries of particular interest to BPH readers. All applications and need to meet the Waverley pre-eminence criteria which is used in assessing objects offered under both schemes:

1. Does the object have an especially close association with our history and national life?
2. Is the object of especial artistic or art-historical interest?
3. Is the object of especial importance for the study of some particular form of art, learning or history?
4. Does the object have an especially close association with a particular historic setting?

See: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/supporting-arts-museums-and-libraries/supporting-collections-and-cultural-property/acceptance-lieu/cultural-gifts-scheme-and-acceptance-lieu-annual-report-202324

Image: The Angel at the Tomb (Portrait of Mary Ann Hillier) by Julia Margaret Cameron. Photo: Courtesy Pallant House Gallery

A collection of over 7,000 historical photographs of England compiled by Janette Rosing (1942–2021) has been transferred to Historic England under the government Acceptance in Lieu scheme. A previous tranche of Rosing's collection of Cornish photographs was passed to Kresen Kernow (Cornwall archives) under the same scheme in 2023.

The 2024 Cultural Gifts and Acceptance in Lieu Report notes: Janette Rosing, was historian and prominent collector, compiled this extensive survey of 19thcentury photographs over 50 years. Rosing’s research interests embraced the topographical history, built environment, social life and customs of England. The photographs were purchased individually or removed from albums and rearranged by Rosing. She made handwritten annotations on the reverses and borders of the prints that document her research and decisionmaking in building the collection. The collection includes many rare and early examples of different photographic processes, and features the work of such leading pioneer photographers as Francis Bedford, Linnaeus Tripe, Francis Frith and Frederick Scott Archer.

The Panel considered the archive, accepted from the estate of Miss Janette Rosing, preeminent under the first and third criteria. It has been permanently allocated to Historic England for its archives in Swindon in accordance with the condition attached to the offer.

The tax value was £21,536. 

The government's Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) Scheme and Cultural Gifts Scheme (CGS) enable UK museums, galleries, libraries and archives to acquire significant objects, in most cases at no cost to themselves. Managed by the Arts Council of England the 2023 report has just been published and there are two entries of particular interest to BPH readers. All applications and need to meet the Waverley pre-eminence criteria which is used in assessing objects offered under both schemes:

1. Does the object have an especially close association with our history and national life?
2. Is the object of especial artistic or art-historical interest?
3. Is the object of especial importance for the study of some particular form of art, learning or history?
4. Does the object have an especially close association with a particular historic setting?

See: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/supporting-arts-museums-and-libraries/supporting-collections-and-cultural-property/acceptance-lieu/cultural-gifts-scheme-and-acceptance-lieu-annual-report-202324

Image: Photograph of Wisbech Hunstanton Hall by Samuel Smith. Photo: Courtesy of The Historic England Archive.

The latest issue of the Science Museum Journal which has just been published includes several papers of photographic interest. Christine Ferguson looks at, Power at play in paranormal history.The contested object biography of the Cottingley Fairy artefacts in which she takes a fresh look at the Cottingley Fairies hoax;  Communities & Crowds: a toolkit for hybrid volunteering with cultural heritage collections makes use of the National Science and Media Museum collections to inform it with outcomes of a project partly based at the museum; and Elizabeth Edwards, Constanza Caraffa and Ruth Quinn are in conversation talking about photographic curatorship and photographic cultures in museums and research institutions.

The journal is free to access online here: https://journal.sciencemuseum.ac.uk/current-issues/

The French Ministry of Culture has announced plans to celebrate the bicentenary of photography over 2026-2027. Mrs Rachida Dati, Minister of Culture, called for a great, popular and festive celebration of the bicentenary of photography throughout France, to honour the invention and photographic heritage for more than a year. A press conference in the spring will unveil the highlights and projects that will make the bicentenary of photography a unique event for everyone.

Frenchman Nicéphore Niépce took the first extant permanent photograph which is dated 1826-1827 and which marks his invention. The bicentenary is an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate photography. France has major photographic collections, major festivals and dedicated fairs and a large network of specialised venues and publishers that make it one of the most dynamic countries for photography on the international scene. The bicentenary will promote these collections and offer access to them, and photography more widely. 

To support the celebration, the Minister announced the creation of a scientific committee which will support the Ministry of Culture in defining the major scientific and artistic activities for the bicentenary. It will be led by Dominique de Font-Reaulx, an art historian specializing in the nineteenth century and photography, and a general curator at the Louvre Museum. The scientific committee is composed of recognised experts in photography and images: Eléonore Challine, Alexia Fabre Michel Poivert, Pierre Singaravelou, and Antonio Somaini. 

The committee will appraoch all those involved in photography, from the institutions supported by the Ministry of Culture, to professional networks and artistic venues, in order to bring this festival as close as possible to the public, and geographically across France. They will participate in the development and implementation of a very diverse programme: exhibitions, screenings, publications, meetings, etc. Exhibitions will contribute to enriching the way we look at the medium, in its heritage senses to the most experimental.

Among the highlights of the bicentenary:

• a major exhibition-manifesto will mark the opening of the bicentenary in the autumn of 2026 at the Grand Palais, in partnership with the Centre Pompidou and the GrandPalaisRMN in order to promote the national photographic collections
• a historical exhibition around the figure of Nicéphore Niépce will be shown at the Nicéphore Niépce museum in Chalon-sur-Saône, in collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale de France
• events will be offered throughout France with the support of Diagonal, a photographic production and distribution network
• A call has been launched for a major national commission, Reinventing photography, led by the National Centre for Visual Arts. Fifteen photographers will be selected to carry out their projects, which will question the medium in all its dimensions, from its primitive times to the most contemporary experiments
• further calls will be launched to professionals and the general public, in particular a national call for projects that will label events selected for their interest and their artistic, scientific or cultural contribution to the history and evolution of photography

Mrs. Rachida Dati, Minister of Culture, commented: 'Born in France two hundred years ago, photography is now part of our daily lives, especially that of young people. I call on all those involved in photography to imagine together a great popular and festive event, with all audiences, everywhere in France. From daguerreotypes to selfies, the bicentenary of photography is an invitation to celebrate the history of this major art in France through our unique collections, but also to show the diversity of the most contemporary creation'.

The scientific committee of the bicentenary of photography noted: "The celebration of the first photograph is a wonderful opportunity to retrace the major stages in the evolution of this art – from Niépce's heliography to digital images – to honour its creators, from 1826 to today, but also to bring us together around common and singular images. Photography has gradually become one of the most democratic artistic expressions. For two hundred years, it has been writing our common history.'

BPH will continue to follow developments as they are announced.

Image: enhanced image of Point de vue du Gras by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Harry Ransom Center, Gernsheim collection. Original plate c.1826/1827

The Studies Gallery in Edinburgh will open the exhibition John Thomson in China on 29 January, bringing Thomson's photographs back to the city of his birth. A series of talks and an evening reception are being held on 10 February, including a walk through with curator Betty Yao. 

Thomson's birthplace in Brighton Street, Edinburgh, was commemorated in 2021 with a heritage plaque. See here

John Thomson in China
29 January-23 February 2025
Studies in Photography Gallery
6 William Street
Edinburgh
EH3 7NH
See: https://studiesinphotography.com/pages/welcome-to-6-william-street

Join Mary Phan, V&A Curatorial Felllow in Photography, supported by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation as she reveals some of the more quirkier nature images from the Royal Photographic Society collection (RPS). Featuring a cast of stuffed animals, intelligent and not so intelligent birds, incredible high-speed images of insects, a one-eyed owl photographer, and the ingenious exploits of the Kearton brothers, who would do anything to get that perfect shot.

The Royal Photographic Society was founded in 1853 with the objective of promoting the art and science of photography. It is one of the largest collections of British photographic history with 400,000 objects, including original prints, archival correspondences and records, cameras and other technical equipment.

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAoa4Bn67U8

Fast Forward: Women in Photography together with University of Nicolaus Copernicus in Toruń announces the Polish edition of the Fast Forward conference Beyond The Canon, which is organized in partnership with Vintage Photo Festival.

The research project Fast Forward: Women in Photography aims to explore the work and histories of women photographers, promote opportunities and question ideas dominating the field of photography by initiating thoughtful, new debates. Initiated in 2014 with a panel discussion at Tate Modern, the project has become significant within the world of photography for examining the work of women photographers and for questioning the way that the established canons have been formed. 

The sixth Fast Forward conference that will take place in Toruń, Poland explores the (hi)stories of women in photography with a particular reference to how women’s work is curated, exhibited and collected by museums, institutions, festivals, galleries and individuals. We are interested in the curators, the collectors and the photographers and through this inspiring conference intend to make a unique contribution to the study of women in the field of art by looking in detail about how exhibiting and collecting photography works. 

For years photography was considered as a mediocre medium by the art world, its museums and galleries. Towards the mid 1990s the position of photography in the art world started to change and today it has become the “hot topic” of the global art field with works being exhibited, bought and sold at the highest prices and shown in the most revered exhibition spaces. What place has women’s photographic work taken in this booming business? How have women provoked new discourses concerning the limitations/problems of the canon? How have women been exhibited, collected and conserved?

You are invited to submit a 500-word abstract to apply to make a presentation at the conference. Questions of interest include but are not limited to:

>> How do institution / museum collections address the equal representation of women and non-binary people? What challenges and experiences they face in this process?

>> What are the new ways to preserve and archive the women’s work in photography?

>> What can we do about the glass ceiling in the art marketplace and what effects does this market have on institutions? 

>> What collaborative methods are being used or have been used between individuals and institutions for making a real change?

>> Throughout histories and including the present how have women collected, make visible, and valuable other women? How do we measure the impact of women curators and collectors in shaping the narrative of photographic history?

>> How digital technology and online tolls support the processes of visibility and preservation of women’s photographic work?

We invite submissions that investigate artistic research, curatorial and collaborative methodologies, conservation and archival concerns, as well as new theoretical and practical discussion around women’s work in photographic field. We welcome abstracts from a range of scholars, researchers, curators, archivists, and cultural producers working in and around the above mentioned areas, in different continents and at different stages of their career. 

The conference will include exhibition and collection visits over a three-day period including two-day conference held at the Faculty of Fine Arts Nicolaus Copernicus University Toruń, Poland and one day visiting the exhibitions of the Vintage Photo Festival held in Bydgoszcz, Poland. We will also visit the conservation centre of the Nicolaus Copernicus University.

Beyond The Canon: exhibiting, curating and collecting photography by women
10-12 October 2025
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Nicolaus Copernicus in Toruń, Poland
cfp deadline: 227 January 2025

Details: https://fastforward.photography/our-projects/cfp-fast-forward-conference-6-in-poland-october-2025/

Image: Janina Gardzielewska awaiting the opening of the Nicolaus Copernicus House Museum, Toruń, June 1, 1960, a photograph from the family album of Janina and Zygfryd Gardzielewski, from the collection of the University Library in Toruń

The Association of Historians of Nineteenth Century Art (AHNCA) is hosting two virtual salons, one on 17 January 17 and the other on 24 January to learn more about books published in 2024 by AHNCA members. Each author will give a brief presentation about their book, followed by a discussion among the authors and a Q&A with the audience.

of particualr note is the salon taking place on 24 January which will include Jeff Rosen who will be discussing his book Julia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography. The full programme is: 

Ruth E. Iskin, Mary Cassatt between Paris and New York: The Making of a Transatlantic Legacy
Sarah Lewis, The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America
Kimberly A. Orcutt, The American Art-Union: Utopia and Skepticism in the Antebellum Era
Jeff Rosen, Julia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography

Julia Margaret Cameron: The Colonial Shadows of Victorian Photography
Paul mellon Centre for Srtudies in British Art
ISBN: 9781913107420
292 pages
Rosen examines how Cameron and her family processed news of the rebellion alongside former colonists and government officials, men such as Sir John Herschel, Lord Lansdowne, Thomas Babington Macaulay, and her husband, Charles Cameron. He also demonstrates how Cameron's artistic choices were inspired by the fine art criticism associated with the Arundel Society and the South Kensington Museum. In the process, Rosen analyses the symbolism in Cameron's portraits, the political codes in her imagery of widows and orphans, and the historical narratives that informed her allegories of the revolt and its aftermath.

Attendance for the Salon is free but registration in required.

Virtual Salon
24 January 2025 at 1400 (EST) | 1900 (UTC) | 2000 (CET)
Register at: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIlf-ihrDsuEtf3pWA02hVoYI5MJ22Vx45

How can creative practices disrupt power structures within the archive? In March 2025, Autograph and Parse Journal will host a new symposium Encounters: Art, Power and Archives in London to discuss strategies and methodologies to rethink, reimagine and reshape the histories embedded in archival collections.

We are calling for presentations that examine how reactivating archival materials through diverse perspectives and disciplines can challenge dominant narratives. With a focus on decolonial and queer methodologies, the symposium will emphasise approaches that encourage a continual reengagement with archives.

We are looking for a broad range of interdisciplinary voices to present their work. This could include – but is not limited to – proposals that share artistic or scholarly research, creative or social projects, and provocations. You might be a historian, archivist, researcher, educator or artist: or any mix of disciplines. Submissions are encouraged by contributors from all backgrounds.

Encounters: Art, Power and Archives will take place on 18 March 2025 in London.

https://autograph.org.uk/blog/news/call-for-papers-encounters-in-the-archive/

The Paul Mellon Centre for British Art has awarded grants for a number of photography projects. These include: 

• Sara Stevenson for the publication The Two-way Gaze. David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson’s Fishermen and Women of the Firth of Forth (author grant - large)
• Whitechapel Gallery for the publication Joy Gregory: Catching Flies with Honey (Exhibition publication grant)
• Lucy Howie for research on the project Franki Raffles and Sandra George: Disability and Community Photography in 1980s Scotland (Research support grant)
• Aindreas Scholz for research on the project Rediscovering Anna Atkins: Illuminating the Forgotten Female Pioneer of British Photography (Research support grant)

See: https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/grants-and-fellowships/awarded/autumn-2024/page/1

Spring 2025 sees three films looking at photographers and their work. First up is I am Martin Parr which is in cinemas from 21 February. Since the 1970s, British documentary photographer Martin Parr has fearlessly held out his unique photographic mirror and given us some of the most iconic images of the past century. Through an intimate and exclusive road trip across England with the artist, director Lee Shulman (The Anonymous Project) uncovers the life of Magnum photographer Parr: an ironic chronicler of British kitsch, a fierce critic of consumerism, and a narrator of stories suspended between comedy and tragedy. Compiled from exclusive archival footage alongside interviews from various individuals in Martin’s life - close family, fellow photographers, artists and filmmakers, from artist Grayson Perry to musician Mark Bedford (Madness). The film offers a portrait of an extraordinary photographer who revolutionised contemporary photography by inventing a political, humanist and accessible photographic language.

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is released on 7 March. Winner of the L'Œil d'or for Best Documentary Film at Cannes Film Festival 2024, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found is directed by celebrated filmmaker Raoul Peck, best known for his BAFTA-winning and Academy Award-nominated film I Am Not Your Negro (2016). Narrated by Academy Award nominee LaKeith Stanfield, it documents the life of Ernest Cole (1940–1990), the South African photographer whose groundbreaking work exposed the horrors of Apartheid-era South Africa to a world audience. The film recounts Cole’s wanderings, his turmoil as an artist and his anger, on a daily basis, at the silence and complicity of the Western world in the face of the horrors of the Apartheid regime. Through his photographs, writings, and audio from the expanded Cole archive, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found paints an intimate portrait of a remarkable photographer who is finally getting his dues.

Finally, on 21 March is Two Strangers Trying Not To Kill Each Other. Nominated for two British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs), the film is the story of artist couple Joel Meyerowitz and Maggie Barrett. Meyerowitz (84) is a world-renowned photographer. British-born Barrett (75) is a talented but less recognised artist and writer. Thirty years after a chance encounter, Maggie and Joel are still very much in love. But there is a knot of unease in their relationship, which is further strained when Maggie falls and breaks her leg and Joel becomes her caregiver. In the shadow of mortality, each with a long and dramatic life behind them, the hard truths of life together provoke in Maggie and Joel an attempt to find a shared inner-peace while there is still time. With unique access to the couple’s lives, directors Jacob Perlmutter and Manon Ouimet have created a profoundly moving film about living, creating and loving. 

A trailer for I am Martin Parr is available here: TRAILER

More details or to arrange a screening see here: https://releasing.dogwoof.com/

A new book looks at the history of polar exploration. Of particular note to BPH readers are a number of chapters of photographic interest which show and discuss the Goodsir daguerreotype and Adamson calotype of him, Challenger expedition icebergs, an early Beechey Island image, the Franklin daguerreotypes, Antarctic stereoviews, a pre-1900 Antarctica photo, and Ponting's kinematograph, although historic photography features throughout. The book has been researched and written by Anne Strathie who will be known to BPH readers through her recent biography of Herbert Ponting. 

A History of Polar Exploration in 50 Objects. From Cook’s Circumnavigations to the Aviation Age
Anne Strathie
£22.00
The History Press, 2024
https://thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/a-history-of-polar-exploration-in-50-objects/

This year - 2025 - marks the fiftieth anniversary of two significant British photography institutions. 2025 marks Four Corners’ 50th anniversary. A programme of events and exhibitions looking into its radical heritage and looking forward to its future. The year also marks fifty years since the Fox Talbot Musuem opened in Lacock on 28 June 1975.The Museum will be hosting an exhibition from May of the little known colour photography of Werner Bischof and has exciting plans for the museum and gardens. A short history is in preparation. 

Separately to British photography, 2025 sees the centenary of the launch of the Leica camera in spring 1925. Leica will, no doubt, be commemorating this significant anniversary in Wetlzar and across the world.   

If you know if other significant anniversaries please comment below. 

Image: the Fox Talbot Museum from the Museum's Newsletter (Summer 1977, No.1)

The photographer Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen received an Member of the British Empire (MBE) for services to photography in the New Year's Honours announced earlier this week. She was also recognised with a Royal Photographic Society Honorary Fellowship in November. 

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen has worked in Britain since the 1960s. Born in Finland, Konttinen moved to London to study film in the late 1960s at the Regent Street Polytechnic. In 1968, she co-founded the Amber Film and Photography Collective, which moved to Newcastle in 1969. Konttinen’s series Byker (1969–1983) and Writing in the Sand (1978–1998) document the devastating impact of Newcastle’s East End redevelopment on the local community alongside the moments of joy and escapism that the beaches of Whitley Bay and Tynemouth provided. In 1980 Konttinen became the first photographer since the Cultural Revolution to have her work exhibited by the British Council in China. Her next project Step by Step, was a study of girls and their mothers at a dance school in North Shields, and their later lives after leaving the school. This series became a heavy influence in Lee Hall's development and writing for his play Dancer, which later became the cult coming-of-age film Billy Elliot. Her other long-term projects include Byker Revisited and The Coal Coast plus related films.

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen's work is in numerous collections and, she has been seen in a number of recent exhibtiions in Britain, Europe and the United States in recent years. She is included in Tate's The 1980s on show until 5 May.  She continues to work and her earlier projects are rightly recognised as seminal and significant documentary photography. 

Sirkka-Liisa ROBERTS (Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen) Photographer. For services to Photography (North Shields, Tyne and Wear)

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen MBE HonFRPS

See: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-year-honours-list-2025 and https://rps.org/about/awards/the-rps-awards-2024/rps-awards-2024-recipients/

Image: Portrait of Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen by Liz Hingley

Early Visual Media Lab — CICANT, from Lusofona University, together with the International Panorama Council and the Art History Institute (IHA, NOVA-FCSH/IN2PAST) invite scholars, artists, panorama enthusiasts and visual media researchers to submit proposals for presentations that explore the theme “The World at a Glance. Panoramic and Peep Technologies.’” This recasting of Robert Barker’s original title for his invention (1787), “Nature at a Glance” (in French, “La Nature à Coup d’ Oeil”), will explore the modern desire to experience the world visually through panoramic or peep technologies and to embark in virtual travels. Panoramas and panoramic imagery shared these early immersive experiences with (itinerant) peepshows, cosmoramas, neoramas, dioramas, and, among others, in the domestic space, zograscopes, stereoscopic photography, graphoscopes and polyoramas. These theatres of visuality were key achievements in art, education and science, fostering visual curiosity and new skills of looking. Either engaging a distant or a proximate gaze, requiring lenses or a specific vantage point on a viewing platform, these technologies made the world in all its aspects admirable and available at a glance. In addition to challenging the visual sensorium, panoramic and peep technologies often intersected and mobilized a synesthesic universe. By exploring their coexistence and intermediality, new light will be shed on the visual cultures and worldviews they promoted. 

This next IPC conference in Lisbon will showcase such intersections and remediations with the exhibition The Cosmorama: The 19th-Century Hidden Travels, held at the Portuguese Cinematheque. Curated by the research project Curiositas. Peeping Before Virtual Reality, this exhibition will draw on extensive historical research that unearthed the cultural history of the European Cosmoramas. It will include physical and virtual recreations of cosmorama rooms, showcasing Panorama and Cosmorama artists such as Hubert Sattler from Salzburg.

We welcome proposals for field reports, creative presentations, media presentations, and scholarly papers of up to 20 minutes in length that focus on panoramic or/and peep technologies, their specificities, intermedialities, socio-cultural and political roles, as well as their current digital and virtual cultures, and their conservation, display and mediation challenges.    

The IPC conference will present a diverse range of session topics based on the proposals, as well as workshops, round tables and visits. It will be of interest to academics, professionals, students and enthusiasts of art, visual media, art history, conservation and preservation, cultural heritage, design, history, museum practice, panorama management, restoration, virtual reality, and visual culture, as well as to thinkers and makers from other disciplines or whose work is transdisciplinary with an interest in immersive and peep media, media archaeology or any other related field. 

Full details: https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/stereo/announcement/view/219

The London Archives and Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) have announced a unique collaboration that will - for the first time ever - showcase their impressive collections alongside one another. From summer 2025, the London Archives - formerly the London Metropolitan Archives - will host some of the most popular items from the RIBA Collections, one of the largest architectural collections in the world, alongside the archives’ collections of books, documents, manuscripts, maps, images, and photographs.

The partnership will coincide with the temporary closure in April 2025 of RIBA’s renowned library to enable the refurbishment of RIBA’s London headquarters at 66 Portland Place, as part of its House of Architecture transformation programme.

The collaboration will help ensure that RIBA’s collections currently housed at Portland Place remain accessible to users, and within short distance, during the building’s closure period.

The partnership will allow RIBA to utilise our state-of-the-art conservation and digitisation spaces, ensuring that vital work on conserving rare books and digitising RIBA’s collections continues seamlessly during the refurbishment of 66 Portland Place.Executive Director of Architecture Programmes & Collections at RIBA, Oliver-Urquhart Irvine said: 'Our partnership with The London Archives is an exciting step towards ensuring that our invaluable collections are as widely accessible and well-cared for as possible. This collaboration is not only about preserving access to RIBA’s collections while we undertake the transformative refurbishment of 66 Portland Place, but also inspiring new discoveries and connecting more deeply with architectural professionals, researchers, students, and the public – indeed, anyone with an interest in, or passion for, architecture. Together, we will unlock exciting opportunities that showcase the dynamic interplay of architecture, history, and culture.'

See: https://www.thelondonarchives.org/your-research/riba-at-the-london-archives

Image: Oaklands Estate, Poynders Road, Eastman House, 1936. London Picture Archive - 265971

Professor Annebella Pollen's covid-delayed inaugural professorial lecture will take place on 5 March in Brighton. She will be talking through and reflecting on some of her core interests and major projects of the last 20 years, and pose the questions: What kind of stories can historic images and objects tell us about the past? When objects and images are preserved, in personal collections or in institutional archives, what kinds of futures are they expected to serve? And what happens when those stories get lost, or those histories are forgotten?

For over two decades, Professor Pollen has built a series of studies that reinterpret undervalued collections and examine visual and material culture that has been pushed to the margins. From photographs found in end-of-life house clearances to the visual archives of utopian movements, she questions what gets wasted and saved, what gets culturally consecrated and what gets overlooked. The lecture reflects on how we use images and objects to narrate our lives, and how seeing and feeling historic images and objects can offer fresh perspectives for the present day.

The talk will be recorded and made available after the event. 

Images, objects and their afterlives
Professor Annebella Pollen
Wednesday 5 March 2025 at 6.30pm
Sallis Benney Theatre,
University of Brighton, 58-67 Grand Parade,
Brighton, BN2 0JY
Free event. All are welcome, but register: https://www.brighton.ac.uk/research/research-news/films-and-publications/inaugural-lectures/professor-annebella-pollen.aspx

The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum is recruitng for two postdoctoral posts to support the work of Professor Helen M Hanson (Project Lead), and the project team on the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project: Women’s Screen Work in the Archives Made Visible (2024-2028). The two roles are: Postdoctoral Research Associate (Archives) and Postdoctoral Research Associate (Curation). 

The Project researches the work of British women filmmakers in the British Film Institute National Archive at the Conservation Centre, Berkhamsted and the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter. It aims to make their work more discoverable in film-related archives through innovative archival practice, and to translate their work to public audiences through curation of exhibitions in film museum contexts

You will work primarily with the Project Lead (Helen M Hanson) and BFI Project Co-Lead (Wendy Russell) in the BFI National Archive (Conservation Centre, Berkhamsted), spending approximately 3 days per week at the archive during the project. You will become familiar with archival practice at the BFI and will have the opportunity to apply this to agreed collections. You will innovate and test feminist approaches to archiving and will contribute to cataloguing collections of selected women filmmakers (such as Tina Gharavi, and Gurinder Chadha). You will also disseminate the research findings of your work by engaging a range of audiences: the archival community, academics and wider publics.

Details: https://jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecruitment/wrd/run/etrec179gf.open?WVID=171839ediw&LANG=USA and https://jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecruitment/wrd/run/etrec179gf.open?WVID=171839ediw&LANG=USA