Geoff Belknap, Head Curator at the National Science+Media Museum, Bradford, has written an extended blog discussing how photography is being collected within the Science Museum Group.
Photography presents particular challenges because of the ubiquity and extent of the medium, although the museum continues to collect both photographs and photographic technology. As Belknap notes: "we want to tell compelling stories about how photography affects our lives, but we also need to acknowledge that we can’t tell every story about photography". With a spectrum ranging from the processes and equipment through to the photographic image, "there lays a whole range of meaning for photography based on how we use photography, such as for scientific research; for political reasons; to monitor and record; as commercial objects; as tools for circulating and exchanging information; or as aesthetic creative expression. This middle ground can be called photographic practice".
As such, he notes, "our focus will emphasise the areas of photographic process and practice...this means we are particularly interested in the stories of how material images and technology (whether analogue or digital) were made and used... In other words, we are less interested in what is represented in a photograph, and more interested in its production and use."
Read Geoff's full blog post 'Process, Product and Practice: Our approach to collecting photography' here: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/blog/collecting-photography/
Comments