The Val Williams Archive will become part of the collection at Birmingham Central Library. The material includes objects from the early years of Impressions Gallery, including the first exhibition poster and design work, plus letters from photographers including Martin Parr and Daniel Meadows. The archive also contains full documentation of Val Williams' exhibition projects and books, including The Other Observers, Who's Looking at the Family and How We Are at Tate Britain, plus photo documentary of the first and second Shoreditch Biennales, press responses, correspondence, and lists of participants.
It will also contain a full archive of Val's writing about photography in publications such as Creative Camera, the New Statesman, The Guardian, The Independent and many other publications, and including the series of interviews Val made for the Guardian Women's page in the early 1990s and her lengthy series of obituaries for the Independent.
Preserved by Val over the last 40 years, the archive has now been ordered and partially scanned, and marks the beginning of a new research resource at Birmingham, in collaboration with the University of the Arts London, where Val is Professor of the History and Culture of Photography.
Comments
Supurb Daniel Meadows book I picked up at the Ways of Seeing thing is on my bookshelf as I type. Great work and research in her books. was honored to have work I archived when I began working in photography at BHRU (but did not make) in the How we Are exhibition and of course my 'photo discovery' Penny who was one of my first students. All the best