Since its invention in the 1820s, photography has been used and understood in many ways: as a technology of seeing, a social document, a commercial transaction, a tool for communication, as a visual language and as a creative practice. It has undergone constant technological development from the analogue through to the digital age. But the power of the still image that seems to fix time remains. What and where is photography today? How can the mutable states of photography be fixed, exhibited and interpreted within the museum?
Photography has been collected and exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) since it was founded in 1852. The collection is now one of the most significant in the world. Martin will look at the contexts and power structures in which photography has been located within this museum of fine and decorative arts. He also considers why photographs as objects, and a visual literacy in the medium, still matter today.
Martin Barnes is Senior Curator of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A). He began working there in 1995 after gaining an MA in Art Museum Studies from the Courtauld Institute of Art. His special interests include early processes, cameraless and experimental photography, industry, photography exhibitions and museology, nature and the environment. Martin has built the V&A collection, conceived the Photography Centre, and is currently lead curator for the digitisation and research project for the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection at the museum. He has curated numerous exhibitions with books, including: Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour (2006); Shadow Catchers: Cameraless Photography (2010); Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography (2011); Curtis Moffat: Experimental Photography and Design 1923-1935 (2016); Camera-less Photography (2018); Into the Woods: Trees in Photography (2019) and Maurice Broomfield: Industrial Sublime (2021).
Why Photography Matters: Changing Contexts at the V&A
Martin Barnes
St Andrews, School Ill (in St Salvator’s Quad – behind the chapel on North Street).
25 March 2026 at 1600. Free
Organised by the Institute for Museums, Heritage and Society (IMHS)
Details: https://imhs.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2026/02/04/why-photography-matters-changing-contexts-at-the-vamartin-barnes-va-london/
Comments
It was an excellent talk, and always a pleasure to talk to Martin afterwards.
Yes in this day and age surely more lectures to which 99% of the potential audience CANT get to can now be made accessible even if a period of time after and only for a short time Is there any evidence that making accessible this way dimishes the live audience?
Martin Barnes Very intersted in your lecture - probably to short notice to put make a livestream, but it would be nice!
It would be nice if this lecture (and others) also could be followed online.
great idea!