The V&A is planning a photography exhibition for the spring of 2024 drawing from the Sir Elton John Collection. It will be a spectacular presentation showcasing highlights from the collection and attracting a large and diverse audience. The exhibition will stage work by major photographers and give an insight into the collecting passions of one of the world’s great performing artists.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a major publication and a wide variety of other events. It will be managed between the Exhibition Department and the Photography Section of the Art, Architecture, and Design Department.

The post holder will coordinate research and other activities associated with the project, supporting the creative vision set out by the Head of Photography, and to help develop and deliver the exhibition and accompanying publication.

This vacancy is available as either a secondment or fixed term contract and is open to internal applicants only.

Closing date for receipt of applications is Monday 21 February at 09:00.

See more here. 

The Imperial War Museum is building new art, film and photography galleries at IWM London, opening to the public in late 2023.The new galleries have been made possible with support from the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Like previous developments at IWM London, the Galleries will be free to enter. 

The Blavatnik Art, Film and Photography Galleries will explore how artists, photographers and filmmakers together bear witness to, document and tell the story of conflict, and demonstrate how artistic interpretation can uniquely shape our understanding of war.

New acquisitions will be exhibited alongside renowned works from IWM’s existing collection, including Gassed by John Singer Sargent, They Shall Not Grow Old by Peter Jackson and Steve McQueen’s Queen and Country.   

The development of these Galleries is the third phase in the dynamic transformation of IWM London and will enable IWM to share works from its exceptional art collection, one of the most important representations of twentieth century British art in the world. They will also showcase some of IWM’s vast and era-defining film and photography collections, which include over 23,000 hours of footage and over 11 million photographs.  

Read more and see highlights from the photography collections here: https://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london/blavatnik-art-film-photography-galleries

Henry Brooks and his family are hardly remembered these days, yet they lived in High Street, Salisbury, for nearly a century. Henry was in turn a wood turner, a carver and gilder, a picture restorer, a frame maker and a painter. He was also one of the earliest Salisbury photographers, opening his studio around 1855, and his business was carried on by his sons well into the twentieth century.

Photo historians Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe, from the Brian May Archive of Stereoscopy, will bring the Brooks family back to life for this evening.

Henry Brooks & Sons, Salisbury Artists and Photographers
Denis Pellerin and Rebecca Sharpe
Thursday, 17 March 2022 @ 1930 (GMT)
The Salisbury Museum, 65 The Close, Salisbury SP1 2EN
£9 (members) and £12 (non-members)
Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talk-henry-brooks-sons-salisbury-artists-and-photographers-tickets-242248982227

19,  a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary study in the long nineteenth century and based at Birkbeck, University of London, has published a paper by Helen Trompeteler titled Queen Victoria and the Photographic Expression of Widowhood. 

The abstract reads: After Prince Albert’s death in 1861, Queen Victoria began an extended period of mourning that remains indelibly linked to perceptions of her identity and visual representation. This article firstly addresses the place of photography in the construction of family memory and examines how Victoria used photography to articulate her private grief and to remember Albert in the context of both her immediate and extended family. Secondly, I seek to establish the ways in which this private image is made public and is circulated by Victoria to generate popular empathy and support for political ends. Lastly, I touch on the global reach of this, and question how mourning and widowhood are implicated in international royal networks and imperial power. Thus, the article reveals the photograph of the mourning widow as more than just an illustration of Victoria and her grief; rather, it shows how the medium shapes that grief and makes it useful for monarchy and empire.

Trompeteler, H., (2022) “Queen Victoria and the Photographic Expression of Widowhood”, 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century 2022(33).
doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.4717

The online journal is open access and the paper can be read here: https://19.bbk.ac.uk/article/id/4717/

Image: John Jabez Edwin Mayall, Group Portrait with a Bust of Prince Albert, April 1863, albumen print, Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2022.

This paper will explore relationships between ecology, sexuality, and decolonisation in the portrayal of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) by queer Sri Lankan photographer Lionel Wendt and queer British anti-imperialist filmmaker Basil Wright, who collaborated together in the 1930s prior to the country’s independence in 1948. In the nineteenth century British colonisers outlawed homosexuality as ‘against the order of nature’ and shifted the island’s economy to mass plantations. At a time when homosexuality was also illegal in the UK, Wendt and Wright’s collaboration reveals how imperial control over desire and the landscape were challenged by photography and film.

Dr Edwin Coomasaru is a historian of modern and contemporary art. He has been awarded Postdoctoral and Research Fellowships at Edinburgh University (2022), the Paul Mellon Centre (2020-22), and the Courtauld Institute of Art (2018-19) — where he earned his PhD in 2018 and co-convenes the Gender & Sexuality Research Group. In 2021 he also worked as a Freelance Research Assistant on an anti-racist and decolonial resource portal for the Association of Art History. He has contributed to Third Text, British Art Studies, Oxford Art Journal, The Irish Times, Irish Studies Review, The Irish Review, Photoworks Annual, Burlington Contemporary, Architectural Review, Source Magazine, and the Barbican’s Masculinities (2020) exhibition catalogue. History of Art Research Seminar Series: Sri Lanka’s Queer Tropics: Lionel Wendt’s Ceylon (1950) and Basil Wright’s Song of Ceylon (1934)

History of Art Research Seminar Series: Sri Lanka’s Queer Tropics: Lionel Wendt’s Ceylon (1950) and Basil Wright’s Song of Ceylon (1934)
University of Edinburgh / Edinburgh College of Art
30 March 2022 at 1330-1430
Online. Open to all
Details here: https://www.eca.ed.ac.uk/event/history-art-research-seminar-series-sri-lankas-queer-tropics-lionel-wendts-ceylon-1950-and
For enquiries, contact Malene Nafisi, malene.nafisi@ed.ac.uk

This year's McKenzie Lecture will explore the intersection between book history and the history of photography, and will look at the possibilities of such a combined view of the photographic book from 1843 to now.

Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian, has published widely on the history of collecting and the history of photography since 2014. He is the author of Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge under Attack (2020) and of John Thomson (1837–1921): Photographer (1997), a major study of the Scottish photographer.

Photography and the Book
Richard Ovenden OBE
17 February 2022 at 1700-1800 (GMT)
Lecture Theatre 2, English Faculty, St Cross Building, Oxford
Live and streamed live, free
Register: https://visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/feb22/photography-and-the-book

As part of the City of Culture programme, Photo Miners are presenting Richard Sadler's photography of the immediate years after the Second World War in Coventry. In this period, Coventry not only recovered from the horrors of the multiple bombings that devastated the city but also renewed its character through hard work and forgiveness. Coventry became a city of the future, a welcome home to displaced and migrant people and one that pioneered new ways of living through its architecture and planning and innovative industry.

Richard lived through this period and, in a time of scarce photographic resources, committed to documenting Coventry's story. Thanks to his work, we have high-quality visual evidence of 1950s Coventry. At the Old Grammar School, Hales Street, Coventry, Photo Miners are working with communities to curate three sequential exhibitions that try to do justice to both Richard and that time.

The exhibitions are:

Pioneering People: Sadler and the City / 8 February - mid-March 2022

In this first exhibition, we present the people of post-war Coventry: the children, teenagers and young adults that inherited a damaged city and set the common ground to transform Coventry into a city of peace and reconciliation.

You'll see the Umbrella Club, opened by the Goons in 1955 as well as Foleshill Jazz Club from earlier in the decade. We'll show you dancing in the streets too, as well as how to hang out at the precinct in 1950s Coventry.

We also present some photography of Coventry at the time, the damage and the recovery, including a series on the famous Godiva Cafe and Broadgate - to illustrate Coventry's belief then that it is a city of the future, a belief we believe applies today.

Pioneering Industry: Sadler and Courtaulds / End March - end April 2022

Courtaulds was an internationally-renowned man-made fibre manufacturer, producing products used by the military as well as by civilians. It was so strategically important that, as a condition of the USA joining the Second World War, the Courtaulds Company had to give up its manufacturing base and product rights in America.

Courtaulds had facilities across the UK but Coventry was its beating heart - its research centre that developed the products that made its name.

In this second exhibition, we use Sadler's 1951-54 photography to showcase the scientists, workers and processes that made the company such a huge success.

In particular, we focus on how Courtaulds in Coventry employed more women than men, and in particular Vera Furness, who led the research team which eventually created another world-changing product - carbon fibre.

Coventry remains an innovative city and elements of the Courtaulds Company, and their specialisations, have been inherited and built upon, and so we also feature a few examples about specialist companies today.

Pioneering Arts: Sadler and the Cathedral / May - mid-June 2022

The new Cathedral appeared in Coventry not just as an extraordinarily high-quality building designed and built to last for a thousand years but as one that was home to new art. In a time when so much of the past was lost, and so the clamour to return to known ways was strong, the committee that oversaw the new cathedral was steadfast in its commitment to new art. Today we know they made the correct decision and are grateful for it.

This third exhibition, held to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the consecration of the cathedral, celebrates the time when the cathedral was new. We present unseen images of the Sutherland tapestry being offloaded and moved to the cathedral, of it being hung before the internal space was complete. We see the Ramsey-Hoskins nativity scene, now partially lost, making its first appearance. We also present previously unseen images of early mystery plays performed in the ruins. As with the City of Culture today, we're seeing in this exhibition an investment in emerging and new artists whose ways of seeing provide fresh but unfamiliar perspectives. Trust in art and you will be rewarded for years to come. 

About Richard Sadler 

Dr Richard Sadler was the official photographer at Coventry Cathedral, Belgrade Theatre, RSC and Courtaulds for many years. He also undertook arts projects, exhibiting locally, nationally and internationally, finding fame in particular with his portrait of Arthur Fellig, known as WeeGee, the American crime photographer.

Richard exhibited regularly, both locally, nationally and internationally. His website, www.richardsadler.co.uk, has more details on his many accolades and successes.

In 1968 he joined what is now Derby University as a member of the arts faculty and remained there until his retirement in the 1990s. Richard sadly died in 2020 aged 93.

Pioneering Coventry: the post-war photography of Richard Sadler
Old Grammar School, Hales Street, Coventry, between 8 February-30 May 2022
https://photomining.org/

The National Portrait Gallery has announced a major partnership with the global leader in family history, Ancestry. Over 125,000 digitised portraits from the Gallery’s extensive Collection will be made available to Ancestry users, and to celebrate, the National Portrait Gallery is working with Ancestry to launch The Nation’s Family Album – a search for undiscovered portraits of everyday British people collated into a representative online album. The initiative invites people of different ages, backgrounds and cultures in the UK to delve through suitcases in attics, scour photos on walls or flick through albums on bookshelves and submit their favourite family images.  

Entrants will be in with the chance of having their own family photographs and stories included in an online exhibition, as well as a display at the iconic National Portrait Gallery in London when it reopens in 2023, following the completion of its Inspiring People redevelopment project. 

The Nation’s Family Album is set to be an important record of our collective history, as it will highlight, celebrate and capture the rich and diverse family stories across Britain, making it easier for future generations to find out more about their family history.  

Entries open today and submissions must be uploaded digitally by Thursday 30 June 2022. Any person in the UK may submit a maximum of three images that relate to the following themes: Belonging, Legacy, Connection and Identity.  

Later this year, a panel of experts – including the National Portrait Gallery’s Chief Curator, Dr Alison Smith, and family history expert Simon Pearce from Ancestry – will shortlist a selection of portraits that best encapsulate the themes of The Nation’s Family Album. 

The UK, Portraits and Photographs, 1547- 2018 collection, launching on Ancestry today, captures British history and culture in a variety of mediums, including paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings, and prints. The National Portrait Gallery showcases the work of many acclaimed artists and photographers, but portraits in the Collection are selected primarily for their subject matter and the sitter’s importance to British culture and history. As well as many iconic portraits of famous figures, the collection includes images of individuals from all walks of life, including:

• David William Richardson - Teacher; second son of Elizabeth Marion and Neil Richardson
• Lydia Dorothea Benoly - First woman mayor of Bethnal Green; social worker and teacher 
• Mairi Chisholm - Motorcycle ambulance driver, nurse and photographer

For more information about how to submit your family photographs, entry Terms & Conditions and to explore the collection, visit www.ancestry.co.uk/FamilyAlbum. To buy copies of the portraits from the National Portrait Gallery, please visit www.npg.org.uk/shop/npgprints.

A new book by Jason Bate has just been published by Bloomsbury Academic. Photography in the Great War asks what is it to study historically positioned vulnerabilities in regard to patients in emerging medical photograph collections? What is the impact of the violent nature of institutional archives and imperial modes of ordering on marginalised and suppressed communities? Who exactly is being protected by the ethical protocols and conventions here? Is it the institution, the author, the reader, the deceased historical figure or distant relatives? At what point does or should the subject’s confidentiality take effect? When does a person, their name, their image have a right to privacy and anonymity and when not, and who gets to decide? 

In Photography in the Great War, Jason Bate draws on a rich set of materials to examine postwar experiences of ex-servicemen who were facially-disfigured during the First World War. Weaving together medical, institutional, amateur and family photographic practices and processes under a social history framework, he underscores overlooked aspects of these men’s continued hardships after returning home from the front. In particular, a focus is on the private sphere of the family and the complicated world of employment that disfigured veterans navigated on their return. 

Little attention has hitherto been paid to the aftercare of disfigured veterans once discharged from the army, or the long-term impact on individuals, and the sense of burden felt by families and local communities. In addressing this neglected area, the chapters here illuminate different practices of photography by doctors, nurses, press agencies, and families across the generations to challenge our perceptions of the personal traumas of soldiers and civilians.

Photography in the Great War. The Ethics of Emerging Medical Collections from the Great War
Jason Bate
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022
See more here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/photography-in-the-great-war-9781350122062/

Photohistories has published an extensive and insightful interview with Grace Robertson & Thurston Hopkins by Graham Harrison. It dates to from 19 January 2011....Sitting with their cats in the lounge of their cottage at Seaford on the Sussex coast, Grace and Thurston are discussing the demise of Picture Post, as Graham Harrison listened. The couple regret not taking their negatives from the ‘Post’ darkroom, nearly all of which went into the Hulton Picture Library....

Read the full piece here: https://photohistories.org/histories/grace-and-thurston-seaford-19-january-2011

The discovery of the ‘X-ray’ had profoundly significant effects upon modern culture; it pushed the boundaries of science and medicine, operated as spectacle for public entertainment, nourished beliefs in the paranormal and provided a subject through which printed media could raise emerging modern social and ethical issues. The fascination with X-rays has been described as a ‘mania [that] swept the West’. At least forty-nine books and 1,044 scientific essays on the subject appeared in the first year of its discovery. Whilst X-radiation generated incredible cultural and scientific fascination, it was also enveloped into other media, from writing and literature to film and painting. This talk will consider some examples of the cultural and artistic forms that this new discovery took and what they had to say about it.

Dr Tom Slevin is a Senior Lecturer at Solent University. Tom has published numerous works around the themes of modern visual culture, photography, critical theory, the European artistic avant-garde, the philosophy of technology and bodily representation.

 Art, Science & Technology: The Discovery of X-Rays and its Culture
Dr Tom Slevin
Wednesday, 16 February, 2022 Start time: 7:00pm
from £4.50 to support the work of the Southampton City Art Gallery
Register here: https://www.wegottickets.com/event/532395#

The Hyman Collection has announced a new website with additional features and expanded scope to reflect the breadth of the collection. It replaces the original site launched in 2015.  The Hyman Collection is the private collection of Claire and James Hyman. It started in 1996 and consists of over 3000 works from across the world, in all media. 

The current exhibition is: Visual Politics: Recent acquisitions by the Hyman Collection which runs until 1 April 2022. See:  http://hymancollection.org/exhibitions/13/

The Hyman Foundation exists to promote and advance education in and appreciation of the arts, in particular the art of photography, in particular but not exclusively by:
a) The establishment and maintenance of an archive, collection and library of historical and contemporary photography; and
b) Providing support to contemporary artists working in photography through the awarding of grants and commissions in particular but not exclusively to young artists and to women working with photography.

Scope of Activities
The Hyman Foundation aims to promote and support photography in Britain in all its diversity.

The charity aims to facilitate the work of contemporary artists, fund research and scholarship, and address issues of legacy and the preservation of archives.
To serve these objectives, we plan to do the following:

1. Create a series of funded grants and projects. These include:
   • Grants with a focus on young artists and women working in photography
   • Mentoring for younger and mid-career artists to advise on their careers, consider legacy issues, and encourage best practice for archiving their work.
   • Working with older artists to help preserve, archive and digitize photographic work for future heritage.
   • Research grants for art historical scholarship
2. Establish and maintain an archive, collection and library of historical and contemporary photographs.
3. Form partnerships with other arts organizations, including Universities, to provide a hub for British photography past, present and future.

Visit the website here: https://hymancollection.org/

Four Corners, in collaboration with Oxford House, and celebrating their exhibition Youth of Yesterday, is sitting down with local photographer Raju Vaidyanathan, who has been documenting London's East End as a Brick Lane and Tower Hamlets resident, since the 1980s.

As a teenager in 1983, Raju acquired an old second-hand camera and started taking photos. Without enough money to print them, it wasn't until the mid-2010s that he started to develop what had by then become over forty thousand negatives of people and personalities in the neighbourhood.

In this talk, Raju will discuss his approach to taking photographs, and how he captured his local area of Brick Lane.

Raju Vaidyanathan in Conversation
Thursday, 3 February 2022 at 1845 (GMT)
Live event, Oxford House, Derbyshire Street, London, E2 6HG
Free, donations welcome
Book here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/photography-talk-raju-vaidyanathan-in-conversation-tickets-250162261057?mc_cid=405b48e1c6&mc_eid=3b48922efe

Any new book from Elizabeth Edwards is significant. Her most recent book has just been published. Photographs and the Practice of History asks what is it to practice history in an age in which photographs exist? What is the impact of photographs on the core historiographical practices which define the discipline and shape its enquiry and methods? In Photographs and the Practice of History, Elizabeth Edwards proposes a new approach to historical thinking which explores these questions and redefines the practices at the heart of this discipline.

Structured around key concepts in historical methodology which are recognisable to all undergraduates, the book shows that from the mid-19th century onward, photographs have influenced historical enquiry. Exposure to these mass-distributed cultural artefacts is enough to change our historical frameworks even when research is textually-based.

Conceptualised as a series of 'sensibilities' rather than a methodology as such, it is intended as a companion to 'how to' approaches to visual research and visual sources. Photographs and the Practice of History not only builds on existing literature by leading scholars: it also offers a highly original approach to historiographical thinking that gives readers a foundation on which to build their own historical practices.

Photographs and the Practice of History: A Short Primer
Elizabeth Edwards
Bloomsbury Academic, 2022
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/photographs-and-the-practice-of-history-9781350120655/

As part of its on-going series of talks looking at collections of photography the RPS Historical Group is  hosting Anne Gleave, Curator of Photographic Collections, Archives Centre, Maritime Museum, National Museums Liverpool, who will give an introduction to the Stewart Bale Ltd photographic collection held at National Museums Liverpool. 

The collection consists of most of the surviving Bale negatives, around 200,000, principally large format glass and film, along with approximately 4,000 prints and original documentation i.e. order books or negative registers and client registers.  The date span and diverse range of Bale’s commissions has left a unique visual legacy of Liverpool’s built environment and industrial, shipping and commercial history during a major period of social change and development.  Although principally from the North West, commissions extended nationally.  The range of subject matter is particularly well represented in shipping; docks and cargo handling; engineering; architecture; industry; commerce; transport and World War II bomb damage in and around Liverpool.  The talk will aim to show a cross section of image content, some details of the firm’s history, the collection and the work that has been undertaken to date to preserve and catalogue it.

Presenting the... Stewart Bale Ltd Collection
8 February 2022
Free, online
Register here: https://rps.org/bale

Past talks are available https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbpBS9KWcBfCfeWAJNybBw15Ps_L3w6gQ

The Archivist post sits within the Programming department at The Photographers' Gallery which includes the Exhibitions, Digital and Education teams. Programming staff are responsible for the planning, development, delivery, evaluation and archiving of: exhibitions, events, projects and related activities. 

The Archivist post will oversee the acquisitions, management, preservation and dissemination of the collections within Archive, alongside participating in the wider work of the organisation. The successful candidate will be a qualified professional with knowledge and experience of archiving practice within a visual arts organisation, with an interest in photography. 

Details: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/about-us/job-vacancies-tpg

This informal illustrated talk will explore the photographic practice of Augusta Crofton Dillon (1839 - 1928) of Mote Park House, Roscommon and Clonbrock House, Ahascragh, Galway. Crofton was a talented amateur photographer. Her work is included in one of Ireland's finest photographic collections - the Clonbrock Collection at the National Library of Ireland - and is highly sought-after by private collectors worldwide.

Orla Fitzpatrick has an extensive knowledge of historical photographic practices in Ireland. In her research into Augusta Crofton's work she has examined a wide range of previously neglected source materials. In this talk, Fitzpatrick will draw on her close examination of Crofton's diaries and personal account books. They span a thirty-year period from 1865 to 1895 and reveal new insights into Crofton's experiments with the wet plate collodion process in the 1860s through to her adoption of later technologies and hand-held instant cameras.

This talk is presented as part of In Our Own Image: Photography in Ireland 1839 to the Present - the first comprehensive historical and critical survey of photography in Ireland. The launch exhibition in this year-long programme is on display at the Printworks, Dublin Castle until February 5th.

See more and book: https://app.squarespacescheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=20183240&calendarID=6459355

Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/c/GalleryOfPhotographyDublin/featured

Photography, femininity and leisure: Augusta Crofton Dillon's photographic practice, 1865 to 1895
Dr Orla Fitzpatrick
Live and streamed
Monday, 31 January at 1.15pm
Poddle Room, Printworks, Dublin Castle, Dublin, Ireland

Impressions Gallery is a charity that helps people understand the world through photography. Established in 1972, we have grown to become one of the UK’s leading centres for photography.

We are seeking to appoint a Curator to work as part of our small and dedicated team.

The Curator will be responsible for the delivery of exhibitions, commissions, and other curatorial projects in line with Impressions Gallery’s vision and mission. They will contribute ideas to the artistic programme, with opportunities to curate and lead on exhibitions that champion high-quality and risk-taking photography that is accessible to all.

See more and apply here: https://www.impressions-gallery.com/opportunity/curator/

The London Transport Museum, Covent Garden is opening a new exhibition Legacies: London Transport’s Caribbean Workforce from 11 February.  The exhibition celebrates the contribution Caribbean people have made to transport in London since the 1950s to the present day, while also documenting the struggles these individuals and their families endured, especially at the start of their new lives in the Capital.

Striking archive photography, oral recordings of family history, new films, some never-before-displayed objects and advertising posters explore how generations of Caribbean workers have shaped London and its transport.

After the Second World War, the UK’s need for workers to help re-build the country coincided with the Caribbean population’s need for jobs. Britain benefited greatly from those making the difficult 7,000km journey to London.

From 1956 to 1970, LT ran a direct recruitment campaign from Barbados, Trinidad and Jamaica, looking for employees to come and work for the organisation. Arriving with high hopes about starting a new life in Britain, many were shocked with the difficulties they faced including racism, poverty, homesickness and damp, cold British weather.

New recruits worked as bus conductors, station staff, canteen assistants and in track maintenance. Though many employees were skilled and well-educated, they had to take basic, low-paid work and often found promotion difficult due to informal but pervasive discrimination. 

Yet, despite these challenges, many employees have fond memories of enjoying their work, helping to create new social and sports clubs such as the London Transport Caribbean Association and joining LT’s many sports teams.

Visitors will be able to uncover stories and memories from first, second and third generation Caribbean people who worked for LT in the past and now work for its successor, Transport for London (TfL).

See: https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/visit/museum-guide/legacies-london-transports-caribbean-workforce

Ffotogallery has announced Siân Addicott as its new Director. Siân will join Ffotogallery at the beginning of April from her current role as Head of Undergraduate Photography at University of Wales Trinity St David’s (UWTSD).Siân joined UWTSD in 2013, before becoming Programme Director of the BA Photojournalism & Documentary programme in 2016. In 2019, she took on the leadership of the wider undergraduate photography programme, covering Documentary Photography & Visual Activism and Photography in the Arts. Prior to joining the University in 2013, Siân spent eight years working as International Editor at Camera Press, one of the UK’s largest independent photographic agencies.

Siân said “I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to lead the team at Ffotogallery and build upon its success as the home for contemporary photography in Wales. I’m really looking forward to exploring exciting and new collaborative partnerships with photographers, artists and organisations, and with communities across Wales and beyond, and helping to develop Ffotogallery’s potential following its recent relocation. At a time when photography’s legacy and on-going role in shaping cultural identities is rightly being challenged and re-examined, there has never been a more timely opportunity to ensure Ffotogallery is a welcoming and inclusive space for progressive photography in Wales. “

Mathew Talfan, Chair at Ffotogallery said, “We are delighted with the appointment of our new Director, and believe that Siân will bring a wealth of experience to the role. Her deep knowledge of photographic practice, her combined background in commercial and education settings as well as real understanding of cultural identities in Wales and her commitment to social justice make for a really strong platform on which to lead Ffotogallery.”

https://www.ffotogallery.org/