Displaced Visions: Émigré Photographers of the 20th Century was the title of a talk and conversation between Dr Nissan Perez, former Curator of Photography at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and photographic historian and curator Colin Ford CBE.
The talk is available to view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9swElGoYS4&feature=youtu.be
The Another Eye conference, celebrating the contribution of women refugee photographers who came to Britain after 1933. will be held online after its postponement earlier this year.
Presentations will cover photographers’ work across portraiture, reportage, social documentary and architectural photography, and how the European cultural approaches that they brought with them informed British visual culture. In particular we will consider how their experiences both as outsiders and as women shaped their practice.
Speakers include:
This free event will run over three afternoons from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 September.
Details and registration here: https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/another-eye-online-conference
The Four Corners exhibition Another Eye: Women Refugee Photographers in Britain after 1933, runs until 3 October 2020.
The rare photographic images of Florence Nightingale are so famous and familiar – iconic even – that we tend to take them for granted. But what do we actually know about them, about the circumstances in which they were made, distributed and, more importantly maybe, about the photographers who took them? Come and discover the truth behind the iconic pictures of a British legend in a Zoom talk by historian, Denis Pellerin, from Dr. Brian May’s London Stereoscopic Company.
Florence Nightingale apparently loathed having her photograph taken. Why then did she accept to sit for these images? And why did she repeatedly lie about being photographed only once, by command of the Queen?
This is the story of a quest, of a search that took Pellerin and his assistant, Rebecca, to dozens of different places and archives, both on location and online. The talk is being given for the benefit of the Florence Nightingale Museum
The talk is £5.98. To read more and book click here: https://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/they-mystery-of-florences-photos/
At an estimate of £60-100 a stereoscopic daguerreotype of Fox Talbot by Antoine Claudet could be yours. The lot is being offered by Kings Russell Auctioneers in London's Knightsbridge in an auction as lot 172 on 18 August 2020.
The description is here:
Antoine Claudet (French, 1797-1867), Portrait of William Fox Talbot, stereoscopic daguerreotype, mounted with photographer blindstamp to mount and label to verso No.4695 Mr.Claudet, Photographer to the Queen, 107 Regent Street, London, H.17cm W.12cm, full frame size H.25.5cm W.21.5cm
Estimate £60-100 / http://www.kingsrussell.com/index.php/component/catalogue/lots?auctionid=39&start=160
As most BPH readers will immediately see the lot is NOT a stereoscopic, NOT a daguerreotype and is NOT a portrait of William Henry Fox Talbot, but could be another William Fox Talbot. The auctioneer has been approached for more information about the attribution.
Fortunately, the auctioneer's terms of business state 'Should any Lot be sold other than specifically described in writing in terms of appearance or condition, authenticity or originality, the Buyer has 12 days from the date of sale to apply in writing for a refund of the purchase price'.
As they say caveat emptor
The Black House was a hostel founded in the early 1970s by Herman Edwards, a charismatic Caribbean immigrant, better known to his community as Brother Herman. It aimed to provide accommodation and support for disillusioned black adolescents in Islington, London, many of whom had experienced prejudice, unemployment, and problems with the police.
Almost half a century later the Michael Hoppen Gallery has an exclusive video interview with 83 year old Colin Jones and considers the lasting impact of his iconic series of work. The Gallery also has available vintage works from The Black House series (1973-76).
See more here: https://michaelhoppen.viewingroom.com/viewing-room/10-colin-jones-the-black-house-1973-76/
The 35th Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards have announced the long and shortlisted titles. The books in the running for the 2020 Photography Book Award and Moving Image Book Award address diverse global issues related to race, justice, identity, and the construction of truth, history and memory.
Ranging from illuminating artist monographs and anthologies to in-depth critiques of photography or filmmaking, to photobooks reconstructing hidden stories, and much more, the lists reflect the Foundation’s enduring recognition of rigorous and original books that will likely have a lasting impact on their field.
Professor Elizabeth Edwards, Judge, Photography Book Award comments: “The significant themes that emerged from this year’s submissions clustered around identity, environment and the uses of history and memory. Overall the entries demonstrate the centralityof photography as a major articulation of submerged, contested but vital histories.”
Dr Andrew Moor, Judge, Moving Image Book Award comments: “The longlist contains work that pushes at the boundaries of the cinematic. It is a set of books that aims to reinterpret the past, reflecting how moving images mediate our lives, animate our memories and vitally record our presence.”
In lieu of an Awards Ceremony which usually takes place during Photo London, the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation has teamed up with The Photographers’ Gallery to announce the winners in September. A live stream event hosted by the Gallery will feature conversations about the two winning books. Sir Brian Pomeroy CBE, Chair of the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation said: “In this, our 35th anniversary year, the submissions have maintained an extremely high standard of image-making and authorship, carrying forward our mission to encourage and celebrate outstanding photo-books and books about the moving image. We are very pleased to be partnering with The Photographers’ Gallery in presenting the awards this year.”
Winners will receive prize money of £5,000 each. For both categories, the shortlist selected by the judging panel aims to showcase innovative and coherent bodies of work with a focus on cultural relevance for our current times and in the years to come. The judges also put precedence on each publication’s design, texture, and haptic qualities, aspects that are particularly poignant during this period of digital focus.
The Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards, first established in 1985, are open to all Moving Image and Photography books published in the previous year and available in the UK. Over 200 entries were considered this year.
The shortlisted titles are as follows:
2020 Photography Book Award (Shortlist):
La toya Ruby Frazier (Mousse Publishing & Mudam Luxembourg)
With its commentary on poverty, racial discrimination, post-industrial decline and its human costs, this work leaves a lasting historical legacy and forms a pertinent contemporary commentary about the American condition. The almost magazine-like production values add to this sense of historical ‘first draft’.
Photography, Truth and Reconciliation by Melissa Miles (Routledge)
Photography has been at the centre of the political, social and cultural processes of truth and reconciliation in response to oppressive regimes and dispossessing histories. Taking case studies from Argentina, Australia, Cambodia, Canada, and South Africa, Miles explores the dynamics through which artists have explored these compelling and difficult histories, raising questions of memory, identity and justice.
The Curious Moaning of Kenfig Burrows by Sophy Rickett (GOST Books)
Rickett’s book is a striking collection of 41 photographic works inspired by the life and work of 19th Century Welsh artist and astronomer Thereza Dillwyn Llewelyn. Through photography and text, Rickett charts her journey towards making sense of the sprawling and complex Dillwyn Llewelyn family archive.
2020 Photography Book Award (Longlist):
● The Canary and The Hammer by Lisa Barnard (MACK)
● Women War Photographers: From Lee Miller to Anja Niedringhaus by Anne-Marie Beckmann & Felicity Kom, eds. (Prestel)
● Seeing the Unseen by Harold Edgerton (Steidl co-published with the MIT Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts)
● LaToya Ruby Frazier (Mousse Publishing / Mudam Luxembourg)
● Signs and Wonders: The Photographs of John Beasley Greene by Corey Keller (Prestel)
● The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion by Antwaun Sargent (Aperture)
● Dr. Paul Wolff & Tritschler: Light and Shadow – Photographs 1920 bis 1950 by Hans-Michael Koetzle (Kehrer Verlag)
● Photography, Truth and Reconciliation by Melissa Miles (Routledge)
● The Curious Moaning of Kenfig Burrows by Sophy Rickett (GOST Books) 22 July 2020
● Where We Find Ourselves: The Photographs of Hugh Mangum, 1897–1922 by Margaret Sartor and Alex Harris, eds. (University of North Carolina Press)
This two-part online research seminar event raises questions about how archives of ‘vernacular’ photographs inform and shape our understanding of both the present and the past. During the presentations, each speaker will examine how archives are re-activated within contemporary photographic practice as potential sites of critical political significance. Whilst the starting point originates with the material culture of the archive itself, the political relationships within the selected photographic materials will be critically evaluated. These discussions aim to expose and debate the continued complexity of gender, sexuality, race, class and politics held within the photographic archive.
Part 1 – The Personal Is Still Political
17th September 2020
Sian Macfarlane, Coventry University (30 mins)
Lizzie Thynne, Professor of Film at Sussex University (30 mins)
Chair: Caroline Molloy, Programme Leader in Fine Art and Photography at UCA Farnham
Part 2 – The Living Memory Project
24th September 2020
Geoff Broadway, Director of the Living Memory Project (30 mins)
Caroline Molloy, Living Memory Bursary Artist in Residence (20 mins)
Harmeet Chagger-Khan, Living Memory Artist in Residence (20 mins)
Chair: Dr Nicky Bird, Reader in Contemporary Photographic Practice, Glasgow School of Art
Family Ties Network:
The Political Geographies of the Archive
Online Research Seminar
17th and 24th September 2020 1800-1930
Registration is free but you will need to book a place to receive the Zoom links for the sessions. The links will be sent out shortly before the scheduled event. Book here
Image Credit: Swimmers at Reedswood Park open air pool, early 20th Century, courtesy of Walsall Archive used in the Women of Walsall Living Memory Project by Caroline Molloy
2020 coincides with the centenary of the first woman matriculating and graduating from the University of Oxford. What better time and place could there be for celebrating women and their diverse roles in international photography?
What themes are women photographers addressing from behind the camera? To what extent have muses become collaborators in the creation of their photographic image? Do selfies show more than self-generated objects of display?
Our festival seeks to draw attention to diverse viewpoints, relationships, and concerns that inform today's photographic culture.
Photo Oxford
16 October-16 November 2020
Visit our website to find out more.
Image: Hands and Feet © Helen Muspratt ca. 1932
Displaced Visions: Émigré Photographers of the 20th Century was a major 2013 Jerusalem exhibition and book that reconsidered the work of nearly 100 key immigrants, focussing in particular on the earliest photographs taken by them as artists in their various new countries, exploring how this work expanded photographic practices of the time and influenced the history of the medium.
On Sunday 2 August from 1700-1830, Nissan Perez, former Curator of Photography at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, will give a talk about the topic of his book, as part of the 'Insiders/Outsiders' Festival. Nissan will reconsider the work and influence of key figures in modernist photography from the point of view of their status as refugees or immigrants, considering how this condition affected their vision and creativity and enhanced the development of the photographic language in general.
The session will be chaired by photographic historian and curator Colin Ford CBE and held in association with London’s Four Corners Gallery.
To see the rest of the programme clock here: https://insidersoutsidersfestival.org/free-insiders-outsiders-online-events-programme
or to book directly click here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/displaced-visions-emigre-photographers-of-the-20th-century-tickets-112790816368
Four Corners has announced the launch of a Heritage Lottery funded project. The 3-year project will see it delve deeper into Four Corners Archive, evolving the collection into an active site for public events, study, socially-engaged practice and collaboration. Here's what is planned:
Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, supported by a curatorial research grant from the Paul Mellon Centre. Project partners are Bishopsgate Insitute, Centre for Arts, Memory & Communities at Coventry University, Feminist Library, Jo Spence Memorial Library at Birkbeck, Mayday Rooms, Swadhinata Trust, Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives.
See: https://www.fourcornersfilm.co.uk/whats-on/hidden-histories
When the National Library of Scotland and National Galleries of Scotland acquired the MacKinnon Collection, it made a joint commitment to preserve it in alignment with its growing world class photographic collections and provide access for ever-changing audiences. This talk describes our current cataloguing, digitisation and engagement activities, and explores ways in which the MacKinnon Collection compliments existing strengths in the NLS and NGS photographic collections. Join curator Blake Milteer to hear more.
Thursday, 16 July 2020
From 1700-1730
Free
Book: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/saved-for-the-nation-where-does-the-mackinnon-collection-go-from-here-tickets-110249770030
Back in March BPH published a regularly updated blog of how museums, galleries, research venues and events were approaching lockdown with cancellations, postponements and closures. Finally, after more than twelves weeks, museums, galleries and libraries are allowed to open from 4 July, albeit with constraints because of social distancing, the need to protect staff and visitors, and, of course, financial considerations associated with ticketing, shops and cafes and a reluctance of visitors to use public transport or to visit indoor venues . The fact that some venues are able to open does not mean that they will do so.
Below is an updated list of events and venues. Please comment with other photography venue openings if they are not listed here. Please check before visiting - many venues are now requiring pre-booking.
Events
Most venues are operating pre-booking, reduced opening days and hours and not all parts of their building may be open. Check before making a special visit.
Venues
First published 30 June 2020 and updated regularly.
Facing Britain brings together for the first time outside of the UK a particular view of British documentary photography. Long forgotten and only recently rediscovered photographers such as John Myers, Tish Murtha or Peter Mitchell who are shown alongside works by internationally photographers such as Martin Parr. The show offers an insight into the development of documentary photography in the UK, which is interwoven with that in continental Europe and North America, but also independent of them.
The documentary aspect is one of the great strengths of British photography, which is capable of depicting a part of geographical Europe in transition in a multifaceted, surprising and artistically original way. Facing Britain focuses on the period of Britain's membership of the European Union and its forerunner between 1963 until 2020. In view of the current Corona pandemic, the exhibition proves to be a break in the artistic development of an entire nation.
The photographers being exhibited include five women photographers, but missing are a number of significant photographers of colour who brought - and bring - a distinctive perspective to British documentary photography and the way in which they approached their subject matter.
Included are: John Bulmer, Rob Bremner, Thom Corbishley, Robert Darch, Anna Fox, Ken Grant, Judy Greenway, Paul Hill, David Hurn, Markéta Luskačová, Kirsty Mackay, Niall McDiarmid, Daniel Meadows, Peter Mitchel, David Moore, Tish Murtha, John Myers, Jon Nicholson, Martin Parr, Paul Reas, Simon Roberts, Dave Sinclair, Homer Sykes, Jon Tonks and others.
The exhibition describes the decline of the coal industry, the Thatcher era with the Falkland conflict, and the Brexit that divided the country. A special focus is on the 1970s and 1980s, which were influenced by David Hurn, Tish Murtha, Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr, when artistic documentary photography gained an importance worldwide. Martin Parr describes these decades as 'a formative period for British photography, in which the strength of the documentary movement really came alive'.
In Great Britain, photography was not considered an autonomous art form until the 1980s. The first major survey exhibition on British documentary photography in Great Britain did not take place until 2007 under the title How We Are: Photographing Britain at the Tate Britain, London. Subsequently, the British Council's exhibition No Such Thing As Society: Photography in Britain 1967-1987 toured the UK, Poland and Sweden from 2008 to 2010.
This late tribute to the pioneers of British documentary photography also demonstrated the difficulties of photography in Britain. British photography, with a few exceptions, had difficulty in asserting itself on the international market, not least because of its socially critical or political content and socially critical approaches, which are unmistakable in the work of Ken Grant, Tish Murtha, Homer Sykes, Paul Reas or Anna Fox.
Facing Britain presents a portrait of Britain that is divided, unequal and interspersed with classes, but marked by deep affection, humanity and humour. The photographs speak for themselves, bear witness to artistic concepts and attitudes and convey historical contexts. They call for a view of today's United Kingdom beyond the clichés. Inequality and identity are still the key concepts that dominate the nation and define what makes the exhibition more relevant than ever. Previously virulent themes such as youth unemployment, the decline of the mining industry or protest and demonstration against the policies of Margaret Thatcher are historically illuminated in the exhibition and critically questioned by the participating photographers. Recent works by Kirsty Mackay, Paul Reas, Robert Darch or Niall McDiramid also reflect current issues on topics such as gender justice, consumer society, Brexit or migration.
Museum Goch
Kastellstraße 9
D-47574 Goch
27 September-to 7 November, 2020
https://museum-goch.de/
Catalogue in preparation
The exhibition Facing Britain at Museum Goch is a cooperation with IKS Photo, Düsseldorf.
Curator: Ralph Goertz
The National Stereoscopic Association's 46th convention 3D-Con is going virtual in 2020. There is a two-part session on the history of stereoscopic photography taking place between 0730-1130 (Pacific Time) which is 1530-1930 (BST) on Friday, 14 August 2020.
The public is welcome to join for a morning of scholarship from an international group of historians and registration is free at the link here: http://www.3d-con.com/registration.php
The announcement in The Chemist (March, 1851) of Frederick Scott Archer’s wet-collodion process transformed how photography was practiced professionally and by amateur photographers for much of the nineteenth century. Photography’s reach broadened socially, grew artistically and extended geographically.
Move forward to the 2000s and the wet-collodion process is, again, impacting photographic practice. It has been embraced by photographers and students who are using it for creative and artistic reasons. This has been supported by a growing number of practical workshops allowing people to experience and learn about the process.
This online symposium Don’t Press Print. De/Re-constructing the collodion process is organised by the Royal Photographic Society and the University of West of England’s Centre for Fine Print Research. It will consist of one-day of papers, a part second day of poster presentations.
Papers and posters are sought for online symposium taking place over two days on 1 and 2 October 2020, which addresses, but is not limited to:
Reconstructing
Deconstructing
Proposals
Proposals of up to 500 words are required by 10 August and should be emailed to: director@rps.org. In addition, the conference will take submissions for online posters until 1 September. Details and key dates are in this PDF download.
See more: https://rps.org/collodion
Lee Miller is increasingly championed for her Surrealism-inspired photographs. Her images of Paris during the late-1920s and early 1930s when she was the muse and lover of Man Ray, her unique portraits of a desert landscape taken in and around Egypt in the 1930s, and her witty yet poignant and often disturbing images taken during the Second World War and its aftermath, are often discussed. Yet, while popularity in Miller’s complex life and photographic work is rapidly growing, her true worth as a Surrealist artist in her own right remains open to further scholarly exploration.
This new collection of essays, therefore, aims to validate Lee Miller’s position, not simply as a muse, friend, and collaborator with the Surrealists, but as one of the Twentieth Century’s most important and influential female Surrealist artists.
Submission
Abstracts of 500 words maximum and a short biography to be submitted by Friday 10 July 2020.
Please submit by email to: Dr Lynn Hilditch (editor) at hilditl@hope.ac.uk
Arts Council England has released funding to support photography organisations. This includes £30,000 for Photo London and £280,00 for The Photographers' Gallery. BPH has identified the following photography organisations in receipt of emergency support, or offers of support:
Arts Council NPOs and Creative People and Places Organisations offered funding
Organisations (non-NPO)
See: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/covid19 and https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/covid19/data
Two lots coming up at auction provide a link back to the photography's earliest days in 1839. Sotheby's auction of Fine Books and Manuscripts including Property from the Eric C. Caren Collection being held on 21 July 2020 in New York has two lots connected to Alfred Swaine Taylor, the pioneer of forensic medicine and an early experimenter in photography.
Lot 89 consists of a group of letters, from c1830-1870 which includes references to his photography experiments. Estimate: US $10,000-15,000.
Lot 90 is a photogenic drawing of a fern dated 2 December 1839. Estimate: US $10,000-15,000.
BPH readers may recall several groups of material from Taylor's former house which was offered by Lacy Scott & Knight in Bury St Edmunds, in 2017 and in one larger group on 5 October 2018, which included letters, books and personal effects covering his many professional and scientific interests including photography.
See: http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/auction-alfred-swaine-taylor-follow-up and http://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/auction-report-alfred-swaine-taylor-archive-5-october-2018
The UK government has announced a £1.57bn package of support for cultural organisations to be delivered through grants and loans, and funding for capital projects. How much is new money, how much will need to be repaid and how much has come from previously announced commitments to the national infrastructure is unclear.
The package announced includes funding for national cultural institutions in England and investment in cultural and heritage sites to restart construction work paused as a result of the pandemic. The government claims 'this will be a big step forward to help rebuild our cultural infrastructure'.
The package includes:
Decisions on awards will be made working alongside expert independent figures from the sector including the Arts Council England and other specialist bodies such as Historic England, National Lottery Heritage Fund and the British Film Institute.
Repayable finance will be issued on generous terms tailored for cultural institutions to ensure they are affordable. Further details will be set out when the scheme opens for applications in the coming weeks.
Although welcomed across the board by leading arts administrators and bodies such as the Royal Opera House, it is unclear whether the funding will actually support smaller organisations not already in receipt of public funding, those outside of London in the same way that London's national bodies look set to benefit, individual artists and freelancers, and venues that have been impacted by social distancing restrictions that are set to be in place for many months. The funding of capital projects may be premature when it is unclear that audiences will return.
Read the government announcement here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/157-billion-investment-to-protect-britains-world-class-cultural-arts-and-heritage-institutions?utm_source=27015a4b-f940-411c-b482-81dceba88625&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=immediate
In 1862, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (who would be crowned Edward VII in 1901 following the death of his mother, Queen Victoria), undertook a tour of the Middle East as part of a structured programme intended to educate the young prince and prepare him for his future role as king. The prince had undertaken previous trips abroad, but on this ambitious itinerary he was accompanied by one of Victorian Britain’s pre-eminent photographers, Francis Bedford (1815 – 1894) and this was the first royal tour to be documented through photography. The exceptionally beautiful images taken by Bedford convey the sense of awe and wonder that these ancient sites still, to this day, possess.
Bedford’s remarkable photographs not only documented the historical landmarks and biblical vistas the prince and his entourage encountered, they also became an important, early record of the Ottoman dominions and the Holy Land. Throughout, Bedford’s task was, as the Photographic News put it, to record scenes that were ‘fraught with historic and sacred associations’.
Each of these carefully framed views was painstakingly composed, and, in our own era of Instagram, online visitors will be able to draw immediate parallels and contrasts. Not least, Bedford’s human subjects were required to remain completely still for several seconds so as not to appear as a blur. And, while Instagrammers require little more than a smartphone, Bedford needed an entire caravan of lenses, tripods, heavy crates of chemicals, glass plates, and a complete portable darkroom to achieve the rich depth and detail of his albumen prints.
Sights of Wonder is the third annual collaboration between the Barber, Royal Collection Trust and the University of Birmingham’s Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies, a partnership which aims to train up a talented cohort of early career curators in a professional setting. As with previous years, a small group of University of Birmingham MA Art History and Curating students takes responsibility for all aspects of an exhibition, from selecting the individual objects from the Royal Collection, establishing key themes, researching and writing interpretation to devising and contributing to the public programme. This year, alongside the usual curatorial dilemmas, the students faced the additional considerable hurdle of Covid-19, and very rapidly had to recast plans for a physical exhibition into virtual form. They rose to the challenge with aplomb, and have produced the Barber’s first show specifically designed for a digital platform, exploring the greater flexibility and deeper levels of engagement which this switch allowed them.
The exhibition can be enjoyed online as if we were accompanying the tour, following the trajectory of the journey, starting with Egypt. Here, we first appreciate the remarkable detail that Bedford’s lens captured in the ancient settings, from desert terrain to the finely carved texture of the stone blocks and pillars of the ruined temples of Karnak, in Thebes. Looking at these images, we may wonder, as the Prince of Wales and his photographer surely did, at the inevitability of the rise and fall of empires.
We then join the entourage in the Holy Land, Lebanon and Syria. Bedford and the royal party would have been acutely aware of both the biblical history and contemporary politics of the region, the latter as turbulent in the 1860s as today. Two years before the royal tour reached Damascus, the escalation of the conflict between Maronites – a Christian group – and Druzes – a religious community associated with Shi’a Islam – saw the destruction of the Christian quarter and the slaughtering of thousands of Christians. Bedford took photographs which showed the aftermath, The Street Called Straight and The Ruins of the Greek Church in the Christian Quarter as well as a portrait of Abd al-Qadir (1808 – 1883), the Algerian religious and military leader who played a key role in helping Christians escape the massacre. The tour then eventually travelled to the more peaceful but no less resonant city of Constantinople (modern day Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and then on to Athens, whose illustrious past would have been deeply familiar to educated Victorians through the works of the great classical writers and philosophers.
Stepping aside from the curators’ primary visual narrative, which draws out the complexities of the Victorian response to the Middle-East through Bedford’s images, our virtual visitors can also explore a range of other options online, from an interactive map of the journey, to detailed video demonstrations of the photographic process used by Bedford. Further resources and activities designed for a variety of age groups and interests are available for virtual visitors to use and share in this discovery section.
Robert Wenley, the Barber’s Deputy Director, said: ‘Bedford’s photographs were taken just a generation after the birth of the medium and yet they have a technical mastery and aesthetic impact that has rarely been matched. This is compelling in itself and arguably even easier to appreciate on screen than in a dimly-lit physical gallery, but the curators’ interpretation of these images takes us beyond their seductive surfaces, and opens up fascinating issues around the nature of empire and the resonance of biblical landmarks to a deeply Christian Victorian Britain. We are enormously grateful to both our student curators and Royal Collection Trust for working so fruitfully and energetically in partnership with us, particularly in such unpredicted and challenging circumstances’
Alex Sheen, Art History and Curating MA student, University of Birmingham, added: ‘Curating in a crisis is definitely not something we envisaged at the start of this project, but the rapidly unfolding situation opened up a valuable opportunity to learn how curation can adapt to the changing world. Through creating the digital exhibition, we now have the benefit of offering greater accessibility and therefore reaching a wider audience. Working with the staff at the Barber and Royal Collection Trust, we’ve aimed to curate an innovative and immersive experience, which visitors can enjoy from the comfort and safety of their homes, wherever they may be.'
Alessandro Nasini, Curator of Photographs, Royal Collection Trust, said: ‘Working with the students on this project has been an absolute pleasure and an enriching experience for all parties. The young curators had the challenging task of selecting a relatively small number of items from a large pool of material made available to them, analysing it, interpreting it and presenting it to the public. Some of these steps took place during visits to Windsor Castle, where our Photograph Collection is housed. We had the opportunity to look closely at the material, while exchanging ideas and openly discussing the many options offered by the material itself and our interpretation of it. From my perspective, it felt like such a refreshing and stimulating experience, almost as if I were looking at some of Bedford’s photographs for the first time. During one of the visits, the student curators also had the opportunity to learn about various behind-the-scenes processes and procedures every exhibition goes through, including the essential work from our colleagues in Conservation. I’d like to congratulate the students on their hard work on the exhibition and thank staff at the Barber Institute and at the University of Birmingham for supporting and facilitating this initiative and such a rewarding partnership.’
For more information about Sights of Wonder: Photographs of the Royal Tour visit barber.org.uk. Follow @barberinstitute on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for regular updates, news and opportunities to engage with the Barber.
Images:
Francis Bedford: The Sphinx, the Great Pyramid and two lesser Pyramids, Ghizeh, Egypt; The Prince of Wales and Group at the Pyramids, Giza, Egypt. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020
