Four Corners and Birkbeck invite applications for a part-time Archive Researcher, to document and undertake research at the Jo Spence Memorial Library Archive at Birkbeck and Four Corners’ Archive from September 2021. This post is funded as part of Hidden Histories, a three-year archive project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which is exploring Four Corners’ archive as a site of socially-engaged practice and collaboration in photography and film. 

Reporting to: Four Corners’ and Birkbeck Project Managers

Job Description

• 18 months fixed term contract, one day per week. Flexible hours by agreement.
• £26,000 pro rata, paid monthly
• Based at Birkbeck, University of London and Four Corners. Employed by Four Corners
• To begin in September 2021

Background

This post will support a joint research partnership between the Jo Spence Memorial

Library Archive at Birkbeck and Four Corners’ Archive. There are significant links between these two collections, and a shared history as Jo Spence was one of the founder members of the Half Moon Photography Workshop and Camerawork magazine.

The aim of the research is to build the archival scope and reach of both collections, through research that identifies key links and themes.

Key tasks will be to:

• Catalogue and document material in the Jo Spence Archive
• Identify specific thematic material across both archives, and curate as a new online exhibition on Four Corners online archive
• Write an interpretative research article
• Deliver a final showcase event, and a public study day engaging broad audiences in both academic and non-academic environments.

Person specification

We are looking for applicants with a background in archives, museums or galleries. You will be a qualified archivist, or have equivalent relevant experience. The role would suit MA or PhD students, working within fields of photography, curation, visual arts or related sectors. You should have a strong interest in and knowledge of feminist history of the 1970s-1990s.

Recruitment pack and apply here: https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/work-with-us

Photo albums as a subject of historical and theoretical discourse are usually considered an instrument of nostalgic reminiscing or, on the contrary, as a vehicle for the traumatic memories of the creators or their descendants, who were directly confronted with these memories and "postmemories" (Marianne Hirsch). But what about albums divested of the original memories, lacking the "oral scaffolding" (Martha Langford), which have acquired a new, often completely opposite meaning over time - for example, family albums confiscated by the state authorities and discovered by chance in public archives decades later, or aesthetically and visually appealing albums connected with chapters in local history that are generally traumatic? After several decades of postmemory, what was supposed to be a nostalgic or joyful memory has become a confusing and painful reminder. These albums affect us, even though we are only loosely connected to them - through geographical, cultural or linguistic affiliations rather than familiality. Unlike individual photographs, albums are also more substantial and as such make much more pressing claims on the attention of researchers, curators, archivists and lay people.

One of the main aims of the workshop is to discuss and highlight obscure, forgotten albums reflecting traumatic or forgotten chapters in history, repressed memories or displaced and marginalized groups or individuals. We therefore welcome contributions focusing on individual albums as well as sets of albums, their creators, history, roles or presentation methods. Special attention will be paid to theoretical issues and concepts that can be used to approach this kind of material. However, our attention will mainly - though not exclusively - be directed at selected topics and events from the 20th and 21 st centuries, which can be considered on three different levels: Czech or Czechoslovak (the initial focus of the research project); Central European; and global. In the context of the Czech Republic, these might include the post-war confiscations and expulsion of the Germans, the total deployment of the population during World
War II, the destruction of villages and settlements in connection with the construction of a defensive line in the border regions, emigration and immigration, minority communities in a linguistically and ethnically relatively homogeneous society, etc.

At the same time, we view photo albums as a complex tool for representing society or individuals, which overlaps with friendship books, scrapbooks, digital records and so on, combining a pictorial component (e.g. photographs, illustrations, postcards) and a textual component (captions, notes, a running commentary, inserted letters etc.), whose meanings change over time. Questions may include: How can this kind of "twisted" material be interpreted? How to interpret these albums without the "oral scaffolding"? How to interpret them from the position of a person with an affiliative, indirect or very loose connection to the past? How to approach albums with this kind of "twisted meaning" from the position of the current owner, curator, scholar or artist? How to approach this kind of material without identifying with it in any way? How to deal with it without merely being charmed by it or, on the contrary, completely paralysed by it?

We welcome proposals from researchers with various backgrounds, including photo history, art history, anthropology, history, philosophy, art etc. Abstracts of up to 300 words together with a brief CV (no more than 150 words) should be sent by 15 August 2021 to trnkova@udu.cas.cz.Authors of accepted submissions will be notified by 31 August 2021.Presentations will be 20 minutes long.

It is anticipated that the workshop will take place in Prague on 25-26 November 2021. In the event of an adverse epidemiological situation due to COVID-19, the workshop will be held online, or alternatively we will consider rescheduling it.

The workshop is organized by CVF - Photography Research Centre at the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with DOX - Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague as part of the research programme Resilient Society for the 21st Century. The event is supported by the CAS through the Strategy AV21 programme.

Organisers: Petra Trnkovii and Barbora Kundracfkovii

Details here and in the file here

Since the advent of film in the late nineteenth century, moving images have been integral to making and communicating science. A rich interdisciplinary literature has examined such representations of science in the cinema and on television and investigated how scientists have used moving images to conduct research and communicate knowledge. Responding to growing interest in science and the moving image, this online workshop uses the concept of ‘intermediality’ as a starting point to discuss new approaches and methodologies. Intermediality, coined by media scholars to describe the interplay between different media, magnifies their multiple meanings and heterogenous interrelations. Moving images especially invite intermedial analysis because they are often composed of interrelated visuals, speech, music, and text; film can also be cut into stills for reproduction in newspapers, advertisements, and journals. Intermedial approaches thus allow scholars to assess not only the relationship between scientific practices and media forms, but also the afterlives, circulation, and reception of these media in a richer historical context. With its attention to relations and movement between media, intermediality also expands our understanding of the visual cultures of science, including in parts of the world and among groups that are underrepresented in current scholarship. We particularly invite submissions that use intermediality to engage critically with the scope and limits of science and the moving image.

Possible themes might include:

• Processes of translation between different media, including film, television, radio, and print
• Intermedial practices and histories of specific scientific disciplines
• Moving images in science education
• Transnational and comparative approaches to scientific image-making
• Time-lapse, frame-by-frame analysis, and other analytical methods as intermedial practices
• Representations of science in multimedia entertainment industries
• The relationship between moving images of science and the history of empire and colonization
• Amateur uses of moving image media, including citizen science
• The cultural reproduction through scientific images of gender, race, and class. 

Keynote speaker: Dr. Tim Boon (Head of Research and Public History, Science Museum Group)

We welcome talks from postgraduate students, early-career researchers and established scholars. We are looking for abstracts (max. 250 words) for 15-20 minute talks, which will be arranged in thematic panels. Submissions should be sent to movingimagescience@gmail.com. The deadline for proposals is June 28th, 2021 and we aim to respond to proposals within four weeks.

This workshop will take place online via Zoom and is hosted by the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge. The workshop is kindly supported by the Researcher Development Fund and the G.M. Trevelyan Fund.

Organised by: Miles Kempton, Max Long, Anin Luo

CfP: “Science and the Moving Image: Histories of Intermediality”
Location: Online (Zoom)
Date: November 2nd and 3rd, 2021. PM (UK time).

Image: Kineoptoscope projector, c.1897 A hand-coloured photographic magic lantern-slide showing a projectionist operating a Riley Kineoptoscope projector
Science Museum Group Collection

Taking James Clerk Maxwell’s experiments as a launching point, this event seeks to expand the field of knowledge surrounding the experimentation, invention, reception and exhibition of colour photography from 1855 to the present day. The event will take an interdisciplinary approach to the topic of colour photography, considering its historical development, present-day practitioners and place and preservation within contemporary collections.

Organised by Catlin Langford, Curatorial Fellow in Photography, supported by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, at the V&A, this event aims to increase understandings around colour photography in relation to the museum’s significant holdings of colour works. This aligns with an ongoing project to research and digitise the V&A’s autochrome holdings, which will inform an upcoming publication with Thames & Hudson.

We are planning to run this event as a fortnight-long online celebration of colour photography. It will involve a series of talks and a conference. Given the present-world situation and to encourage accessibility and international participation, the event will be presented entirely online.

We welcome proposals for papers which can include, but is not limited to, the following themes:

• The search for colour: development and experimentation in the early years of colour photography
• Early and contemporary approaches to colourisation
• Perceptions and opinions surrounding the introduction and practice of colour photography
• Collaboration and circulation through societies and networks of colour photographers
• Advertising colour photography: companies, competition and commercialisation
• Colour photography: art vs amateurism
• Dilemmas and solutions in publishing colour photography
• Notable historical and contemporary practitioners of colour photography
• Preservation and conservation of colour photographs in contemporary collections

The paper should be pitched for a presentation of 10 to 20 minutes.

We welcome proposals from academics, museum professionals, students, researchers, conservators and practitioners. We particularly welcome proposals from those at an early stage of their career.

The deadline for submissions is 15 July 2021. We aim to make a decision by 10 August 2021.

Please send a 300 word abstract and 100 word biography to the following address: vari@vam.ac.uk

Colour Fever
cfp: deadline 15 July
Conference and events: 25 October -5 November 2021

Images: The Royal Photographic Society Collection / V&A Museum, London 

Light Years is a special four-part exhibition series in celebration of The Photographers' Gallery's 50th anniversary.  Arranged around four thematic displays each ‘chapter’ draws on rarely seen materials from the Gallery’s archive to explore key moments or movements in both the Gallery’s history and the photography landscape more widely. 

The Photographers’ Gallery was founded in London’s Covent Garden in 1971 by Sue Davies, OBE, as the first publicly funded gallery in the UK dedicated to the exhibition, exploration, education and development of the photographic medium.  From the outset it has been instrumental in promoting photography’s value to the wider world and ensuring its position as one of our most significant artforms. 

Curated by writer, researcher, academic and broadcaster, David Brittain, Light Years draws on the Gallery’s rich exhibition programme and reflects on its legacy as an influential educational resource.

Theme 1: ‘Photojournalism: a worthy art for a new gallery’
(June – August 2021)

Theme 2: ‘Fashion and Advertising: Anti-elitist art photography’
(August – October 2021)

Theme 3: ‘Beyond documentary: from photography to photographies’
(October – December 2021)

Theme 4: The Archive: Collectors, critics and subversives
(December 2021 – February 2022)

See more here: https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/exhibition/light-years-photographers-gallery-50?mc_cid=6a77b63ff5&mc_eid=355dc0ec8f

When early photographic pioneers Robert Adamson (1821 – 1848) and David Octavius Hill (1802 – 1870) were busy producing their pathbreaking calotypes in 1840s Edinburgh, a rallying call was heard on the streets of the Scottish capital: ‘Send back the money!’ Leading the call was American abolitionist Frederick Douglass who, in 1846, had embarked on a tour of Britain and Ireland. He directed his aim at the Free Church of Scotland, which had accepted funds from the profits of enslavement in the American South. Douglass demanded the ministers send it back

Read more in this blog from Caroline Douglas at the V&A Museum: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-life/pictures-and-progress-frederick-douglass-and-early-scottish-photography

The future of a highly important collection of images by William Henry Fox Talbot, some of the earliest photographs ever made, has been secured. Through the generosity of a private individual, they are being placed on long-term loan at the Bodleian Libraries, allowing them to be studied, exhibited and made available digitally. This generous act has prevented the collection from being broken up, removed from public access or located abroad.

BPH reported on the sale here and result (including the purchaser) here. 

The collection was sold at auction in New York in April 2021 by Sotheby's, who described it as 'the most important lot of 19th century photographs ever to come to auction'. Comprising about 190 photographs in all, it includes many unique images, never before seen, and has a highly significant provenance, as the materials were given by Talbot, the inventor of photography, to his half-sister Horatia Gaisford. After Gaisford died in 1851, the collection remained in family ownership until the auction, and was known as the Gaisford-St Lawrence Collection.

The images offer a major opportunity for scholars and lovers of photography to better understand the emerging artform. Collected in three albums and a cache of loose prints, many of them in marvellous condition, the collection shows some of Talbot's early experiments towards the establishment of photography on paper as well as a selection of his best work from the mid-1840s. The collection includes;

• Early experiments with both the chemistry and optics of photography, including contact prints and images made with a camera;
• Some of the earliest portrait photographs ever made, including of his half-sister Horatia playing a harp;
• Many of the earliest photographs ever taken of Edinburgh, London, and other locations in the UK and France; 
• Portrait of Talbot's mother, Lady Elisabeth Feilding, seated in an armchair;
• Some of the earliest photographs of Oxford, including the Radcliffe Camera (part of the Bodleian Libraries), the Botanic Garden (celebrating its 400th anniversary this year) and many colleges;
• Lady Elisabeth Feilding's room at Lacock Abbey;
• The Scott Monument, Edinburgh, as it appeared during construction; and
• Deck of HMS Superb, Plymouth and the SS Great Britain in Bristol.

Horatia, Talbot's half-sister, married Thomas Gaisford, the son of the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, perhaps explaining why so many of the images in this collection are of Oxford scenes, including many colleges and the Radcliffe Camera, part of the Bodleian Library. Horatia's father-in-law was an important figure in the Bodleian's history in the 19th century. Along with the photographs by Talbot, the collection includes an album of Horatia's sketches and watercolour paintings, and a folio of songs based on poems that she composed.

The collection will be open for scholars to study, and will be digitised to enable access for all through Digital Bodleian. These images will also be incorporated into the Bodleian Libraries' William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonné, a ground-breaking online corpus of the photographic works of the Victorian photographer. The photographs, which remained within the family for over 170 years, build on the growing photographic collections at the Bodleian Libraries, which  include copies of the earliest photobooks: The Pencil of Nature, (1844-46), and Sun Pictures in Scotland (1845).

The images will also form part of a major future exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, curated by Professor Geoffrey Batchen, Oxford University's Professor of the History of Art, a leading authority on early photography. Batchen writes: "Collectively they represent a wonderful cross-section of Talbot's work, including many personal images of family and friends. The portraits, in particular, are a revelation. This particular collection complements the Talbot prints already owned by the Bodleian, adding a copy of Sun Pictures in Scotland, perhaps Talbot's finest aesthetic achievement, to the first fascicle of The Pencil of Nature now in the Library. It seems particularly fitting that the Library will now be able to tell the story of how photographs came to be presented in book and album form, always a key aspiration of Talbot's."

Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian at the Bodleian Libraries, said: "We are delighted to have the opportunity to preserve and make available the Gaisford-St Lawrence Collection of photography by William Henry Fox Talbot. Talbot was one of the world's greatest innovators, and this collection shines new light on his life and work. We are especially excited to be able to digitise and add the images to our online Catalogue Raisonne. We would like to express our great thanks to the new owner for entrusting this collection to our care"

On 14 January 1971, The Photographers’ Gallery opened its doors with The Concerned Photographer, an exhibition which had previously been shown in the United States, Switzerland and Japan, and which presented photography as the optimum medium to document social conditions. This online conference will situate the gallery’s fifty-year legacy of innovative programming within broader infrastructures of exhibition, display and photographic practice. Through a series of papers and discussions, this event proposes to reexamine the spaces and networks that shaped the encounter with photography in Britain, from the 1970s to the present day. 

Organised in collaboration with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and designed to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of The Photographers’ Gallery in 1971, this online conference aims to create and support new research on the histories of photography in Britain over the last fifty years, and to offer a space for thinking about the future of the medium and its display. 

The conference will be held online 25 November, 1 & 2 December 2021. 

The organisers invite proposals for 15-minute presentations, on topics that might include the following: 

Institutions, Infrastructures and Exhibitions

• Impact of institutions, galleries, commercial and non-commercial spaces in Britain for shaping the ways in which photography has been encountered and understood
• Significance of exhibitions of both contemporary and historic photography in creating new narratives for the medium
• Emergence of galleries and spaces dedicated solely to photography in the second half of the twentieth century
• The printed page as a space of display, communication and circulation
• Role of archives, national and special collections as sites for critical debate, examining ownership, access and imbalances in representation 
• Photographic collections and organisations who do not hold permanent collections, and the shifting meaning of photography in these spaces
• Formation of organisations like Camerawork, Half Moon Workshop, Cambridge Darkroom, The Photographers’ Gallery, Open Eye and Impressions Gallery York in the 1970s (leading to one of the most successful national networks of photo spaces in Europe)  and the role played through the establishment of the Photography Department of Arts Council England in 1970
• Role of organisations, such as INIVA, Black Cultural Archives and Autograph, in challenging existing narratives of photography in Britain, and in questioning  the borders, boundaries and definitions of the medium and its histories

Shifting Genres and Definitions

• Rethinking the historical emergence and development of documentary photography and photojournalism 
• Evolution of fashion photography, migrating from the magazine page to the gallery wall
• Challenge of vernacular photography (unauthored prints, for example) to the modernist canon
• Role of the photographic essay and photobook in redefining genres of photography
• Shifting ideas about ‘British photography’ and its relation to international contexts 

Materials, Processes and Theories

• Material aspects of photography and processes, including the advent of new media and other forms of digital practices; experimentation across other disciplines such as performance, sculpture, installation and painting
• Theorisation of photography, informed by perspectives from anthropology, sociology, philosophy, politics, art history and contemporary art, decolonialism/decoloniality, race and queer theory, and feminism 
• Examination of the shifting conditions and place of photography in formal education in Britain (the creation of dedicated photography courses in the 1970s and  their impact on both the photography sector both UK and internationally

Submission Details

Submission deadline: Friday 16 July

• All abstracts must be submitted and presented in English.
• Abstracts should be based on any of the topic areas listed above, or in related areas.
• Abstracts may not be longer than 400 words. 
• Biographies should be approximately 100 words (please do not send CVs). 
• Notification of acceptance of the abstracts submitted will be sent to you via email by Friday 30 July. 

Inquiries and final submissions should be directed to Danielle Convey, dconvey@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk

See: https://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk/whats-on/forthcoming/photographers-gallery-cfp?fbclid=IwAR1KaPDcG08AImqwtx4Lf8lGDj2rxvePGJ665Ag9O8s2pSd75yuT6O3s-zk

The Dreamcatcher: a history of pictorialism is a series of five classes of 90 minutes each running from from Monday 26 July to Friday 30 July. It is organised by École du Louvre and presented by Dr Julien Faure-Conorton and given in French.  Each class will be pre-recorded and available for 24 hours. 

Born around 1890 in England before spreading to the rest of Europe and the United States at the turn of the 20th century, Pictorialism is a major chapter in the history of photography. The ambition of the promoters of this movement was to demonstrate the creative potential of the darkroom by designing photographic 'works of art', prints capable of arousing an emotion, an aesthetic feeling. Who were the pictorialists? What has been their role in the recognition of photography as art? What works have they left us and what do they tell us about their vision, intentions and hopes? So many questions that will be addressed through a poetic stroll through a selection of themes revealing the challenges of this moment in the history of photography. From the figure of the child to the representation of the nude or of nature, from the depths of the night to those of the gaze, we will travel through the pictorialist universe and evoke its most remarkable manifestations and its most illustrious representatives: Alfred Stieglitz, Robert Demachy, Gertrude Käsebier, Heinrich Kühn, Edward Steichen, Frederick H. Evans, Anne Brigman, Constant Puyo, F. Holland Day. In doing so, we will decipher the specificities of this movement which, around 1900, wanted to make photography a means of capturing dreams.

L’attrape-rêves : une histoire du pictorialisme

Né vers 1890 en Angleterre avant de se répandre dans le reste de l’Europe et aux États-Unis au tournant du XXe siècle, le pictorialisme constitue un chapitre majeur de l’histoire de la photographie. L’ambition des promoteurs de ce mouvement était de démontrer les potentialités créatives de la chambre noire en concevant des « œuvres d’art » photographiques, des épreuves capables de susciter une émotion, un sentiment esthétique.

Qui étaient les pictorialistes ? Quel a été leur rôle dans la reconnaissance de la photographie en tant qu’art ? Quelles œuvres nous ont-ils laissées et que nous disent-elles de leur vision, de leurs intentions et de leurs espoirs ?

Autant de questions qui seront abordées au gré d’une déambulation poétique à travers une sélection de thèmes révélateurs des enjeux de ce moment de l’histoire de la photographie. De la figure de l’enfant à la représentation du nu ou de la nature, des profondeurs de la nuit à celles du regard, nous parcourrons l’univers pictorialiste et évoquerons ses manifestations les plus remarquables et ses représentants les plus illustres : Alfred Stieglitz, Robert Demachy, Gertrude Käsebier, Heinrich Kühn, Edward Steichen, Frederick H. Evans, Anne Brigman, Constant Puyo, F. Holland Day…

Ce faisant, nous décrypterons les spécificités de ce mouvement qui, vers 1900, voulut faire de la photographie un moyen de capturer les rêves.

Find out more and register (scroll down): https://auditeurs.ecoledulouvre.fr/catalogue/auditeurs/paris/cours-dete

Devised by Utter Nonsense and originalprojects; the Festival’s home is Great Yarmouth, the town immortalised by the pioneering photography of Peter Henry Emerson.

The launch day on Saturday 5th June will include exhibitions, artist talks, break out sessions, art installations, Journal launch and highlight the workshop programmes and open art competition taking place throughout the rest of the year. We have an excellent line-up of speakers, photographers, gallerists and academics.

Whatever your background, the festival will bring a new understanding to photography, and bring to life the extraordinary legacy to one of Britain's greatest photographers, Peter Henry Emerson. Come and join us on Saturday 5th June 2021.

Click here to take a look at the new online Emerson archive which we will be developing over the next two years.

See details of what's on here: https://www.utternonsense.co.uk/finding-emerson

UPDATE: read a BBC news report here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-57361603 

Join Alexander Moore, curator of Dulwich Picture Gallery's Unearthed: Photography's Roots and Kim Knoppers, art historian and curator at Foam Gallery, Amsterdam, in this online talk as they reflect and share their approach to curating photography exhibitions.

Get an insight into what it takes to stage an exhibition, from the initial concept to researching and designing a show. Whether you’re interested in working on exhibitions, or simply curious to learn what goes on behind the scenes, this is a great opportunity to hear from leading industry professionals. 

15 July 2021 from 1900-2030 (BST)
£10 or £8 (Friends and Patrons)
Book: https://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/whats-on/digital-events/2021/july/curating-photography-talk-qa/

The Guardian newspaper has highlighted that Spain’s best-known photographers have thrown their weight behind a new campaign to establish a national centre to catalogue, share, protect and promote the country’s rich and diverse photographic history. The Platform for a Centre of Photography and the Image – whose members include Ramón Masats, Isabel Muñoz, Alberto García-Alix, Juan Manuel Castro Prieto and Cristina García Rodero – points out that Spain is one of only a handful of EU countries that does not have a centre exclusively dedicated to photography.

Read the full piece here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/31/this-is-our-cultural-heritage-spanish-photographers-seek-national-archive

Image: An exhibition of works by Spanish photographer Ramón Masats in Tabacalera last August. ©  Miguel Pereira.

The National Trust cares for photography collections, numbering over 400,000 image-objects across approximately 250 sites, most of which are under-recognised and under-researched. Spanning the 1840s to the twenty-first century, these photographs are uniquely placed to illuminate social and (globalised) national values through themes such as status, family, travel, leisure, work and labour.

Employing existing image-led digital technologies, Distilling the Photographic Mass: Photography and Digital Heritage at the National Trust is designed to consolidate the National Trust’s photography collections as a means to tease out their dynamic cultural significance in the past and present day. While the National Trust has already digitized part of the photography collections, their potential relevance and employment as digital heritage for public engagement requires exploration and clarification. The project will therefore give particular attention to the question of how digital technologies can diversify audiences, deepen understanding of imperial-era holdings and, as a consequence, foreground less visible aspects of British heritage more broadly. In answering this and related questions, it is intended that the project will demonstrate how digital image cultures may assist heritage industries in fulfilling their aims and social obligations.

As part of the studentship, the successful applicant will have access to the professionally rewarding and challenging institutional environment at the National Trust. They will be given in-house professional training of relevance to their research and have opportunities to gain hands-on understanding of curatorial practices at one of the world’s most renowned heritage institutions. The project is therefore equally designed to equip the successful applicant with subject-specific academic and professional skills alike.

The Project's Lead Supervisor is Dr Gil Pasternak (Photographic History Research Centre – PHRC / De Montfort University), the Second Supervisor is Dr Giuliana Tiripelli (Media Discourse Research Centre – MDC / De Montfort University) and the Third Supervisor is Dr Catherine Troiano (National Trust).

See more and apply here: https://photographichistory.wordpress.com/2021/05/29/phd-studentship-in-photography-and-digital-heritage/

Leading family history website Findmypast and the British Library have today announced an extension of their long term partnership; the British Newspaper Archive.  Originally launched in 2011, this ambitious ten-year project has delivered the most significant mass digitisation of newspapers the UK has ever seen. 

The British Newspaper Archive, now the largest online collection of British and Irish newspapers in the world, has published more than 42 million pages from over a thousand regional, national and speciality titles covering all corners of the UK, Ireland and beyond. 

Spanning four centuries and including 34,000 local, regional, national and international titles, the British Library holds one of the finest collections of newspapers on earth. Prior to digitisation, this vast cultural treasure was held entirely in hard copy and microfilm, necessitating travel and hours of painstaking manual research for anyone wishing to use the collection.

Large parts of this unparalleled resource have since been made available online for the first time, revolutionising access and searchability for users worldwide while reducing wear-and-tear on the Library’s fragile collection items. This includes hundreds of regional titles with long and rich heritages that capture changing times in local areas and communities across the centuries.

Now anyone from amateur researchers to academics can discover the billions of stories that lie within in just a few simple clicks, transforming their understanding of past events both great and small while adding color, context and depth to their research. 

Researcher Suzanne Williams, a student from Swansea said, “The British Newspaper Archive has been an amazing resource throughout my PhD research--I write about late nineteenth century music, and it's given me access to so much information, like details of events and people's opinions from all over Britain that simply aren't recorded anywhere other than in the press. To have that all in one place and so easily accessible is amazing.”

Today’s announcement will result in the online publication of a further 14 million pages over the next three years, including the addition of 1 million new free-to-access pages each year. 

With technology and processes becoming more efficient over time, Findmypast’s digitisation suite at the British Library’s Boston Spa site in West Yorkshire is now digitising the Library’s collection at an unprecedented rate. Since 2019 digitisation has increased dramatically, with over 5 million pages made available to search online in the past 12 months alone. Nearly every page is packed with new opportunities for discovery, containing an average of 80 names each. 

The partnership has already transformed access to this vital part of the national memory and is a much loved resource for historians, researchers, genealogists, students and many others that brings past events and people to life with great immediacy and in rich detail. As well as being available online via the British Newspaper Archive and Findmypast, the archive can also be searched for free by users of the British Library’s Reading Rooms in London and Yorkshire. 

Originally focused on specific geographic areas, along with periods such as the census years between 1841 and 1911 as well as key events and themes such as the Crimean War, the Boer War and the suffragette movement, the archive has since expanded dramatically scope and scale to form a digital “ archive of everything”, covering all facets of British and Irish life between 1699 and 2009. 

The extension of Findmypast’s partnership with the British Library as prefered digitisation partner for mass newspaper digitisation is further evidence of their proven track record of digitising archive materials, making them available to new audiences and preserving them for future generations. Although much of the content on the site is out of copyright, Findmypast have worked with rights holders to make a wide range of more recent content available too.

Offer

In celebration of their partnerships and everything the Archive has achieved so far, Findmypast are offering history enthusiasts the chance to explore this archive of everything with a discount 30% on all subscription options.  This limited time offer is available to all new and returning subscribers from Monday May 24th until midnight on Monday May 31st. Simply visit britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/account/subscribe  and enter the promotional code LIBRARY30 to claim your discount and open a window to four centuries of local, national and world history. 

A new outdoor exhibition showcasing photographs taken over the last five decades has opened in Birmingham’s Centenary Square, reports The Phoenix Newspaper. 

Organised by Legacy West Midlands in collaboration with Birmingham Museums Trust, Freedom 50 celebrates 50 years of Bangladeshi independence and will be on display until the end of August 2021. The Freedom 50 exhibition presents 40 evocative images of protest, self-determination and emigration.

It includes images taken during the 1971 war in Bangladesh, and the protest that followed within the UK. Iconic images from the legendary Bangladeshi photographer Naib Uddin Ahmed are featured, as well as striking images taken by other professional and emerging photographers. Visitors to the free exhibition will also be able to learn about Bangladesh’s recent history and the settlement of Bangladeshi people in the UK via accompanying display panels.

Read more here: https://thephoenixnewspaper.com/new-outdoor-exhibition-opens-in-birminghams-centenary-square

The National Science+Media Museum is seeking an Associate Curator of Sound & Vision for a 12-month period. Bradford’s National Science & Media Museum’s Sound & Vision Galleries will, for the first time, present the museum’s collections together in two new permanent displays telling the story of photography, film, television and sound technologies.

To support this work, we are now recruiting for an Associate Curator (Sound & Vision) on a full-time basis for 12 months. As a core member of the curatorial team, you will collaborate with members of staff across the museum in the development and installation of the content of our new galleries by aiding in collections research, content development and audience engagement. You might be researching and cataloguing objects or, at other times working with colleagues across the Science Museum Group (SMG) in ensuring that the content of the new galleries are engaging to our audiences. You will also take on the specific responsibility of leading on a strategy to embed participation within the museum by delivering and championing community curation from the starting point of the collections.

Joining us, you will hold a genuine interest in community engagement and museum collections, with an ability to connect with our audiences. You will be able to communicate stories about our collections to a range of non-specialist and specialist audiences. You will have excellent interpersonal skills with experience of working as part of a team with a variety of stakeholders to achieve project targets. You will be organised with an ability to effectively coordinate several internal and external stakeholders. Due to the project work entailed in this role, you will need experience in managing complex administrative processes including budgeting and project management planning systems.

See more here. 

Bonhams auction of Fine Books, Manuscripts and Photographs on 24 June includes one lot of Jessie Bertram carbon prints from the negatives of Hill and Adamson.  The collection of 51 prints is estimated at £8000-12,000. 

The lot description reads: 

Footnotes

• A fine group of carbon prints from the original negatives of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson's celebrated portraits of Scottish women (including Newhaven groups), men and children, mostly taken between 1843 and 1847.
  
  These photographic carbon prints were printed by Edinburgh photographer Jessie Bertram (1881–1954) from Hill and Adamson's original negatives. Selections of her works were issued by Andrew Elliot in 1916. They are held in a wooden box, with Bertram's printed label attached. Found with the box is a passport photograph of a middle-aged woman, signed "Jessie Bertram" on the verso and assumed to be her.

Details here: https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26773/lot/25/

A new blog on the National Science and Media Museum website by Charlotte Howard describes the process of changing the daylight studio space within the Kodak Gallery to tell the story of Bradford’s Belle Vue Studio on Manningham Lane.

The new gallery continues the museum's process of making itself more relevant to local audiences. Separately it is also showing the Yorkshire Photographic Union's Annual Exhibition from 2020 and 2021. See: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/whats-on/pursuit-perfection-yorkshire-photographic-union-competition

Read the blog here: https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/belle-vue-studio-kodak-gallery/

Ph: The Photography Research Network is very pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Bridging the Distance at Four Corners, London.

A group exhibition by international photography, moving image, and lens-related artists, Bridging the Distance re-evaluates photography’s ability to draw people close to the feelings, concerns, and lived experiences of those who exist beyond their own immediate physical, political, and cultural spaces.

Curated by Gil Pasternak, the exhibition features the work of international artists Andreia Alves de Oliveira, Estéfani Bouza, Liz J Drew, Paula Gortázar, Alexandra Hughes, Sukey Parnell Johnson, Uschi Klein, Caroline Molloy, Annalisa Sonzogni, Lauren Winsor. Some of the exhibits in the show prompt renewed consideration of photographic images; others revolve around the implications of photography’s material manifestations. Fantasy, social perception, seclusion, surveillance, and the everyday are themes that run throughout Bridging the Distance, prompting audiences to revisit their understandings of photography’s relationship to vision, visibility, and visualisation in different yet familiar contexts.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated to the world how much human beings are dependent on one another for mutual protection and safety. Considering the global rise of various forms of physical, political, and cultural exclusion that characterize life in the present day nevertheless, Bridging the Distance implores audiences to contemplate how photography may be used to neutralise dogmatic cynicism and establish non-discriminatory connections between people across ideological and actual boundaries alike.

The exhibition will be on display between 23 June and 03 July, 11am - 6.30pm:

Admission free.

Private View 23 July, 6 - 8pm.

For more information, please visit the exhibition’s webpage on the gallery’s website: https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/bridging-the-distance

Image: Annalisa Sonzogni

The exhibition Bridging the Distance has received funding from the Institute of Art and Design at De Montfort University Leicester.

The Photographic Collections Network  has announced a series of free talks that explore some of the lesser-known and under represented histories of photography. The first two are: 

26 May 2021 at 7pm: Apna Heritage Archive.

Anand Chhabra, the founder of Apna Heritage Archive, tells the story of how he built a community photographic archive representing Wolverhampton’s population of 40,000 Punjabis. He will give an insight into the challenges and benefits of creating such an archive. Anand is a co-founder, director and the incumbent Chair at Black Country Visual Arts (2014) and also co-founded ReFramed, the first Black & Asian photographers' network in the Midlands in 2020.

1 June 2021 at 7pm: Colonialism and the Archive.

The powerful new film African Apocalypse, airing on BBC2 on 22 May, tells the story of a young man’s journey across Africa in search of a colonial killer; a non-fiction retelling of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The film’s narrator and protagonist, Femi Nylander, begins his journey exploring photographic archives that bear witness to the brutal violence visited on the people of Africa by Europeans. We are pleased to welcome the award-winning director of African Apocalypse Rob Lemkin, the narrator Femi Nylander and the Archive Producer Morgane Barrier, who will discuss the role of archives in revealing the workings of empire and imperialism. We recommend you view the film on BBC iPlayer before attending this event.

See:https://www.photocollections.org.uk/ Links to book are above. 

Image: Femi Nylander exploring a colonial archive, from the film African Apocalypse