Blogs

Anna Sparham has been appointed the National Trust's National Curator, Photography. She has been doing the role for five months on a temporary contract for maternity cover. This has now been made permanent. She takes over from the inaugural curator Catherine Troiano.

Anna was previously freelancing based in her home city of Birmingham where she helped establish the Argenta Gallery . Before that she was curator of photographs at the Museum of London from 2006-2019. She continues to be a co-director of the Developed in Birmingham CIC. 

See: https://annasparham.wordpress.com/ and https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-sparham-b7041664/?originalSubdomain=uk

The National Stereoscopic Association's Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography are a free conference-within-a-conference presents international scholarship on the history of stereoscopic photography. In 2022 the Sessions on the History of Stereoscopic Photography at the 48th Annual 3D-Con will feature the following presenters and topics:

• Arched Tops and Chamfered Corners. Mr Denis Pellerin, London Stereoscopic Company
• The Stereoscopic Picturesque. Dr. Bruce Graver, Providence College
• Drawing in 3D: The History and Techniques of Constructing Stereoscopic Illusions by Hand. Dr Rod Bantjes, St. Francis Xavier University
• "The Stereoscopic Photograph" and "The Traveller": What We Learn from Underwood & Underwood's Failed Magazine. Dr Leigh Gleason, UCR Arts
• Food as a Racialized Subject in the Nineteenth-Century Stereoview.  Dr Melody Davis, Russell Sage College
• Manuel Gonzales, Underwood’s Mexican Stereographer of the Congo. Dr Neal Sobania, Pacific Lutheran University
• Images of Transylvania from the 1910s: Two Amateur Stereo Photographers. Dr Zsuzsanna Szegedy-Maszák, Hungarian National Museum
• America in 1940 in 3D color: The Mysterious Collection of Clyde A. McCoy. Dr Michael A. Amundson, Northern Arizona University
• Virtual Public Space Contested - Will the plaza survive in VR? Dr Rebecca Hackemann, Kansas State University

3D-Con 2022 - 48th Annual Convention • August 1-8 • Hotel Murano • Tacoma, WA. 
The history sessions take place on 5 August 2022 in two sessions: 
Session 1 - 8:00-9:55 AM PDT (1600-1755 BST),  Session 2 — 10:15-12:20 AM PDT (1815-2020 BST)
Details: https://3d-con.com/history.php

This is event is live only, although registration online is closed, attendees can register in person. 

This post is an opportunity to join The National Archives for a one-year research fellowship in photography. The Fellow will conduct original research into our photography collections – one of the largest and most significant collections of photographs in the United Kingdom, which covers the historical timespan of the medium. They will work collaboratively across departments, engaging historical, conservation, and heritage science expertise to activate new, interdisciplinary insights into The National Archives’ photography collections.

The Fellow will be embedded in the Research and Academic Engagement team, and guided by and work alongside our Collection Care experts and Records Specialists to develop their project(s).

See more and apply here: https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?jcode=1803269

This summer, as part of its 75th-anniversary celebrations and in partnership with the BFI and Rio Cinema, Magnum presents an interrogation of its photojournalistic archives via film in a series of screenings and discussions. 

Magnum Photos is hosting its first UK Film Festival: Refocusing the Lens: from the Centre to the Margins from 30 July 30–3 August at the Rio Cinema in Dalston, London. The festival presents an interrogation of Magnum’s 75-year archive through five film screenings and discussions, each zooming in on issues of ethics, underrepresentation, and positionality behind the lens.

Organised as part of BFI’s Film Feels Curious, a UK-wide cinema season, the programme explores photojournalism and the urge to document global issues through the lens of curiosity — conscious of the outrage, empathy, and moral compulsion that drives the profession, as well as the voyeuristic, exploitative, and detached aspects that can accompany its undertaking.

The festival showcases work by four Magnum photographers from four locations: Khalik Allah in the USA, Chris Steele-Perkins in East Africa, Susan Meiselas in Central America, and Patrick Zachmann in the Mediterranean. Each film will be shown alongside relevant works by a wide range of local filmmakers.

The festival ties into the agency’s 75th-anniversary celebrations — centred around the theme ‘In Dialogue’ — and delivers a programme that offers layered perspectives on the same events and locations in a manner that questions, rather than accepts, traditionally privileged gazes. Each screening will be followed by an audience discussion session, led by acclaimed thinkers and professionals across the cultural sphere such as Zoé Samudzi, Dr. Errol Francis, Onyeka Igwe, Jamie Davis, Taous R. Dahmani, Dr. Arthur Asseraf, and Ileana Selejan. Bayryam Bayryamali & Abiba Coulibaly, festival organisers, state: “In our first film festival in London, we wanted to offer audiences a peek into the diverse collection of work produced by Magnum photographers across various continents. By pairing each film with work produced by a local filmmaker, the programme aims to examine the complexities and challenges of representation, the
power of the camera, and il/legitimate agents writing, shaping and sharing histories.”

Find the full festival programme here. Tickets are now available to purchase on the Rio Cinema website.

The book is a developed history of the radiological sciences – covering the back-story to Röntgen’s discovery, the discovery itself and immediate reception the early days of radiology leading to classical radiology (the pre-digital world). The 1970s as the ‘golden decade’ of radiology will be covered in detail, with the development of CT, MRI and modern interventional radiology. It will appeal to interested members of the public, to those working in the field, and to historians of medicine and science.

Invisible Light. The Remarkable Story of Radiology
Adrian Thomas
CRC Press, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-367-34426-9 | £31.19
A 20% discount is available using the code FLE22 at checkout here

Whilst making the film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay, United Nations of Photography Founder and Curator Dr Grant Scott spoke at length with Sue Davies OBE the founder of The Photographer’s Gallery not only about her memories of Jay, but also about the founding of her gallery. In this edited audio from that telephone conversation Davies explains exactly how it came about and why she decided to establish her gallery for photography and photographers in 1971.

In this audio Sue explains how and why The Photographers' Gallery was founded: https://unitednationsofphotography.com/2022/07/21/audio-sue-davies-obe-explains-how-and-why-the-photographers-gallery-london-was-founded-in-1971/

Color Photography in the 19th Century and Early 20th Century: Sciences, Technologies, Empires is a new working group that has been established to propel a rising field of research: colour photography in the 19th and early 20th century in order to reconfigure, expand, and problematize its role in the history of the discipline and in the historical contexts out of which it emerged. Presentations within this working group center on the material and epistemological connections between colour technologies, empires, and visuality, as well as the interdisciplinary ties between photography, other media, and neighbouring disciplines.

The convenors are Janine Freeston and Dr Hanin Hannouch

 Membership is free and a monthly series of online meetings is in preparation. 

Register: https://www.chstm.org/content/color-photography-19th-century-and-early-20th-century-sciences-technologies-empires

Image: https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/autochromes-the-dawn-of-colour-photography/

For roughly 150 years, people have been accustomed to seeing photomechanical prints on a daily basis. Prints exist in a variety of milieus with multiple variations over time, use, and geography. Historic and contemporary examples are prevalent in museums, libraries, archives, and personal collections worldwide. Photomechanical prints were developed to fill many needs including practical and economical methods for mass reproduction, techniques to facilitate the simultaneous printing of images and text, increased image permanence, a perception of increased truthfulness and objectivity, and an autonomous means of artistic expression. They exist at the intersections of numerous disciplines: photography and printmaking, functional and artistic practices, the histories of photography and the graphic arts, and the specialties of paper and photograph conservation.

Proposals are welcome across disciplines and a broad range of subjects that reflect the diversity of the field. Practitioners and scholars at any stage of their career are welcome. Proposals may investigate the following questions as well as other topics:

• What were the desires driving the creation of photomechanical printing processes?
• What are the historic and contemporary contexts for their creation and use?
• What is their place in the history of printing or the history of books? 
• Who are the inventors? What is the early history?
• How have race and gender been represented in and affected by photomechanical print media?
• What impact do these categorizations have?
• Who takes care of these prints? How are they preserved?
• How have fine artists used photomechanical processes?
• How have views on value and collecting of photomechanical prints evolved over time?
• What are the approaches to cataloging, description, and terminology? 
• What can instrumental analysis, characterization, and data science tell us about these prints?  
• What printers are working with these processes today?
• How are these processes taught today? How is knowledge obtained and transferred?
• How are historic processes being adapted to contemporary needs? 
• How are lost processes revived and reconstructions made, and to what aim is this being done?
• What is the future of photomechanical printing?

Proposals should include a 500-word abstract and a 150-word biography. Presentations will be approximately 20 minutes in length and will be delivered in person in English. Speakers will be required to provide a recorded version of their talk after the symposium to include for a limited time in a virtual program for paid registrants.

A link to the proposal submission form is coming soon - check back at the beginning of August! The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2022. Notifications of proposal status will be sent via email in January 2023. Accepted speakers will be provided with complimentary symposium registration (registration to workshops and tours not included) and a travel stipend.

Email learning@culturalheritage.org with any questions.

This gathering will take place October 30 - November 3, 2023, and will consist of a three-day symposium, hosted by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., flanked by two days of optional hands-on workshops and tours of local collections. The program will provide an opportunity for conservators, curators, historians, scientists, collections managers, catalogers, archivists, librarians, educators, printmakers, artists, and collectors to convene and collaborate while exploring all aspects of photomechanical printing. The resulting advancement of our collective understanding of these ubiquitous but under-researched materials will allow for new interpretations and improved approaches to their collection, interpretation, preservation, treatment, and display.  

Details of the call and event can be found here: https://learning.culturalheritage.org/p/photomechanical#tab-product_tab_overview

The Photographers’ Gallery is the UK’s leading centre for the presentation and exploration of photography in all its forms and home to an international community of photographers. Founded in Covent Garden, London, in 1971, the Gallery has been instrumental in championing photography’s pivotal role in culture and society and securing its position as a leading art form, through an inspiring and diverse programme of exhibitions, talks, events, workshops, courses and other activities for anyone interested in photography and its place in the world.

We are now seeking an exceptional candidate to join us as our Director and lead the Gallery in its next chapter. Reporting to the Board of Trustees, the Director will be responsible for the strategic direction of the Gallery including the vision and practical delivery of its artistic programmes. The Director will lead and inspire our staff and volunteers, oversee the continued development of our successful commercial and fundraising activities, and champion the Gallery and the medium of photography in the UK and internationally.

The ideal candidate will bring nuanced knowledge and experience of photography as a medium, and an understanding of constantly evolving and emerging forms of photography in a digital world. They will have a balance of creative and strategic mindsets, experience of successfully engaging diverse audiences, and a deep commitment to the values and ethos of the Gallery. In addition to this, candidates should bring an international outlook and an understanding of public cultural organisations, both within the UK and globally.

The Photographers’ Gallery is passionate about the enormous benefits of a diverse organisation. We actively encourage people from a variety of backgrounds with different experiences, skills and stories to join us and influence and develop our working practice. We are particularly keen to hear from global majority candidates, and candidates who self-identify as disabled.

Saxton Bampfylde Ltd is acting as an employment agency advisor to The Photographers’ Gallery on this appointment. For further information about the role, including details about how to apply, please visit www.saxbam.com/appointments using reference PABEKA. Alternatively, telephone +44 (0)20 7227 0880 (during office hours). Applications should be received by noon on Thursday 11th August 2022.

A rare - probably unique - British travelling photography studio, previously used by the photographers John and  Walter Pouncy of Dorchester from the 1860s is to be offered at auction on 4 and 5 August 2022. It is estimated at £8,000-12,000.

The studio was made for the Pouncy firm and travelled the county. Pulled by horses it offered a studio with glass roof, small waiting area, entry and exit doors and steps, and darkroom. It still retains original fittings for holding background rolls.

The studio is believed to be the only British example in existence. After it was sold by the Pouncy firm it was remained in use by a succession of photographers and was located in Swanage for many years. The current owner, also a photographer, purchased the studio and hoped to find a permanent home for it, while allowing it to travel and retaining its original and to continue to function as a studio. It is complete but needs some restoration and conservation work.  The studio is well documented with the original plans surviving.

John Pouncy is best known for his work uniting lithography with photography met which culminated in his publication in Dorsetshire Photographically Illustrated (1857) – the first English publication ever to feature photo lithographic illustrations.

Michael Pritchard writes: "I had the privilege of seeing the studio in the summer of 2021 and meeting its current owner. It is a remarkable survival. Entering felt like stepping back 130 years. Although the current owner's hope of restoring and retaining it as a travelling studio were not able to be realised, it has been lovingly looked after. It deserves a new home where it can be preserved and shown, ideally in Dorset, and be used as a studio, telling its remarkable story and that of the Pouncy business and nineteenth century photography."  

The auction is being held at Charterhouse, The Long Street Salerooms, Sherborne Dorset although the studio remains onsite at Wareham from where it will need to be collected. Pending the oublication of the catalogue museums and prospective buyers should contact Charterhouse Auctions at The Long Street Salerooms, Sherborne. T:  01935 812277 or e:  info@charterhouse-auction.com 

More information on the Pouncy studio can be seen here: https://www.opcdorset.org/fordingtondorset/Files2/JohnPouncy1818-1894.html

See: https://charterhouse-antiques.com/as-pretty-as-a-picture and a short film here: https://youtu.be/qX8nHuxHmts

The lot can be seen here: https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/charterhouse-auctions/catalogue-id-cav10357/lot-71d1acab-5e68-4010-87f2-aee0011a89e4

Main photographs: © Michael Pritchard, 2021.  Historic photograph courtesy of Charterhouse Auctions

The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation has announced the shortlists and winners for the 2022 Kraszna-Krausz Photography and Moving Image Book Awards. Both the winning and shortlisted titles have been chosen as exemplary demonstrations of originality and excellence in the fields of moving image and photography book publishing. The titles from these books explore a range of themes and address wide-ranging issues such as gender, race, radical politics, and diverse
perspectives on the history and production of filmmaking. Each prize category winner is awarded £5,000.

What They Saw: Historical Photobooks by Women, 1843-1999 sheds light on photobooks created by women from diverse backgrounds, and addresses the glaring gaps and omissions in current photobook history—in particular, the lack of access, support and funding for non-Western women and women of colour. The book is beautifully illustrated with photographs of classic bound books, portfolios, personal albums, unpublished books, zines and scrapbooks,
ranging from well-known publications to the more obscure.

Speaking about the winner of the Photography Book Award, judge Renée Mussai said: “Rigorously researched, generously illustrated, and ingeniously designed, this is an extraordinary publication which not only fills an essential gap and missing chapter in photographic scholarship, but importantly foregrounds the creative pursuits of a diverse
constituency of women, whose significant contributions to global photobook historiography still too often remains invisible.”

Published by The Whitney, The Films of Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné 1963-1965 focuses on Warhol’s film works from the years 1963-65 during a time where the renowned artist produced hundreds of film and video works - short and long, silent and sound, scripted and improvised. The book features over 100 individual works which are catalogued in detail and
combined with enlightening essays that cover Warhol’s influences, his experimentation with film, source material, working methods and technical innovations, as well as his engagement with the people he filmed and how they came to life on the screen.

Details: https://kraszna-krausz.org.uk/

Physicist Gabriel Lippmann's (1845–1921) photographic process is one of the oldest methods for producing colour photographs. So why do the achievements of this 1908 Nobel laureate remain mostly unknown outside niche circles? Using the centenary of Lippmann’s death as an opportunity to reflect upon his scientific, photographic, and cultural legacy, this book is the first to explore his interferential colour photography. Initially disclosed in 1891, the emergence of this medium is considered here through three shaping forces: science, media, and museums.

A group of international scholars reassess Lippmann’s reception in the history of science, where he is most recognised, by going well beyond his endeavours in France and delving into the complexity of his colour photography as a challenge to various historiographies. Moreover, they analyse colour photographs as optical media, thus pluralising Lippmann photography's ties to art, cultural and imperial history, as well as media archaeology. The contributors also focus on the interferential plate as a material object in need of both preservation and exhibition, one that continues to fascinate contemporary analogue photographers. This volume allows readers to get to know Lippmann, grasp the interdisciplinary complexity of his colourful work, and ultimately expand his place in the history of photography.

Gabriel Lippmann's Colour Photography
Hanin Hannouch, Curator for Analog and Digital Media at the Weltmuseum Wien
University of Amsterdam Press, 2022
£109 / €117
Details: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463728553/gabriel-lippmann-s-colour-photography#toc

Doyle Wham, the UK's first and only contemporary African photography gallery, is presenting Tommie Ominde’s first ever solo exhibition. The exhibition runs until 13 August and offers a comprehensive look into the artist’s unique photographic world.

Ominde was born and has lived ever since in the coastal town of Kilifi in Kenya, a small settlement north of Mombasa. He has witnessed gradual and fascinating changes in Kilifi, seeing how the slow but steady influx of tourism has begun to transform his hometown in subtle ways. As a photographer primarily interested in the relationship between people and their surrounding landscape, the last ten years have been a fruitful decade of exploration, observation and documentation for Ominde.

Through the artworks in this exhibition, titled Postcards from Kilifi, we are presented with a unique insight into daily life in Kilifi and, in particular, the myriad ways in which people interact with its coastline. From baptisms to beach-combers, from acrobats to tree-climbers, from fisherman tracing the shore in their dhows to sunset-gazers and goat-herders, the sea is at the core of Ominde’s practice and he is uniquely positioned to capture his fellow participants’ vital relationships with it.

Accessibility is key for Ominde. Therefore, alongside the monumentally-sized photographs presented, there is a wide range of limited-edition artworks exhibited and available for purchase for £200, framed.

ABOUT TOMMIE OMINDE
Tommie Ominde (b. 1996) is a Kenyan photographer who aims to document and demonstrate the beauty of his coastal hometown, Kilifi. Ominde is inspired by exploration and the manner in which we occupy space, in particular our relationship with the natural and built environment. He describes Kilifi, a small town north of Mombasa, as his local canvas. His protagonists are nature herself and figures captured in motion and contemplation, engaged in regular activities that are rendered suddenly and strikingly unfamiliar by the exposure and elongation of these interim, transitory moments.

https://www.doylewham.com/

ABOUT DOYLE WHAM
Doyle Wham is the UK's first and only contemporary African photography gallery. The gallery was founded in October 2020 with an itinerant programme of physical and digital exhibitions, as well as participations in art fairs such as Photo London and Abuja Art Week. As of March 2022, Doyle Wham has launched its first permanent location in Shoreditch, London.

The gallery exhibits both emerging and established artists from Africa and across the African diaspora, with a focus on supporting early-career artists. Doyle Wham celebrates photography in all its forms, from traditional analogue photography to film. Highlighting innovative and experimental expression is at the core of the gallery's ethos. Its 2022 programme will explore this further by expanding into mixed media exhibitions that show the versatility and influence of photography, from commissioning sculptural responses to photographic works, to physical presentations of NFT art.

Getty Images, a preeminent global visual content creator and marketplace, today launched the Black History & Culture Collection (BHCC), an initiative created to provide free non-commercial access to historical and cultural images of the African/Black Diaspora in the US and UK from the 19th century to present day. The collection aims to grant access to rarely seen images for educators, academics, researchers, and content creators, enabling them to tell untold stories around Black culture.

The collection is available for projects focused on education around the histories and cultures of the African/Black Diaspora, dating back to the 1800s. Content created from the collection by partners must not produce revenue and/or be included in any revenue driving advertising or marketing.

The Black History & Culture Collection was carefully curated from content owned by Getty Images, in partnership with internationally recognized researchers, historians and educators, including Dr. Deborah Willis of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Jina DuVernay of Clark Atlanta University, Dr. Tukufu Zuberi of the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Mark Sealy MBE and Renée Mussai of Autograph.

“Getty Images is committed to making this historical content accessible to ensure a more authentic representation of world history and drive more meaningful dialogue.” said Cassandra Illidge, Vice President of Partnerships at Getty Images. “This collection was curated in partnership with a roster of prestigious historians and educators with the goal of providing unfettered access to historical and contemporary imagery which will help content creators who have been seeking an inclusive visualization of history.”

“Getty Images visual archive can provide a unique look into the past and bring untold stories to the present,” commented Ken Mainardis, SVP of Content at Getty Images. “With the launch of the Black History & Culture Collection, we are proud to be able to unearth and open-up access to content previously unavailable or hard to find, facilitating the better telling and understanding of Black history through our visual content.”

Getty Images has partnered with many organizations and educational institutions, including Ohio State University, Black Archives, Radiate Festival, Black History Walks, and others who have already used the collection as part of educational curriculum, exhibitions, and dialogues surrounding vital events from the past, from well-known to previously unseen or untold. To help launch the collection, Getty Images worked with several influential Black voices, including Alexander Amosu, Wunmi Bello, Joshua Buatsi, Tiffani McReynolds, and others to share their own perspectives on pieces of history uncovered within the collection itself.

“To be involved with the Black History & Culture Collection and work so closely with reframing access to these images made a tremendous impact on me personally and professionally,” said Dr. Deborah Willis, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, one of the experts to help curate the collection. “It offered me ways in which to guide my students’ research projects and to show how the Black History & Culture Collection is an active/useful archive that can be used by artists, scholars, families, politicians, and students to recontextualize the past and give new meaning to images that have been largely unknown or underused.”

The Black History & Culture Collection is part of a wider program of activity Getty Images has made toward anti‑racism, inclusion, and dismantling discrimination. In 2021, the company established the Getty Images Photo Archive Grants for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), supporting the digitization of archival photos from Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Learn more about the collection, launch partners, curators, and content at: https://www.gettyimages.com/corporate-responsibility/bhcc

Image: A scientist photographed in London in 1948. Photograph: Keystone Features/Getty Images

To coincide with the Edinburgh Art Festival, Stills is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Ishiuchi Miyako – an influential post-war Japanese photographer. It will be the largest exhibition of Miyako’s work in the UK to date and the first time her work has been exhibited in Scotland. The show which runs from 28 July to 8 October 2022 will consist of a selection of work from some of her most celebrated series including, Mother’s, the series with which she represented Japan at the Venice Biennale in 2005; work documenting the belongings of victims of the atomic bomb which are kept at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum; and photographs from the series Frida, made at The Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City where Miyako photographed Kahlo’s garments such as corsets, cosmetics and shoes.

Ishiuchi Miyako (born 1947) began her photographic career shooting familiar streets and buildings in her hometown, Yokosuka, which had been transformed during the post-war period into a large American naval base. For over ten years, Miyako documented this alien presence, capturing traces of the US Occupation that lingered decades after the war had ended, and charging her work with a subjectivity which blended personal and political awareness.

‘Mother’s#38‘, courtesy Ishiuchi Miyako / The Third Gallery Aya

More recently, Miyako’s work has continued to record material traces of the passage of time, turning her lens away from locations towards the bodies and personal belongings of people. Her series Mother’s (2000-05), in which she documented her mother’s possessions as a means of coming to terms with their relationship and her mother’s death, was selected to represent Japan at the 2005 Venice Biennale. This led to a publisher inviting Miyako to capture the everyday objects which had belonged to victims of the atomic bomb and are held in the collection of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. The Frida Kahlo Museum later commissioned Miyako to photograph Kahlo’s objects at the Blue House in Mexico City (Frida, 2012)

Miyako’s work has been exhibited and collected by numerous prestigious collections and institutions around the world. Exhibitions of her work have been held at J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2015) and the Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan (2017). She was the recipient of the 2014 Hasselblad Award.

Details: https://stills.org/exhibitions/ishiuchi-miyako/

Event: Ishiuchi Miyako in Conversation with Ben Harman

To mark the occasion of Ishiuchi Miyako’s exhibition, join Stills at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh on 2 August 2022 for Ishiuchi Miyako in Conversation with Ben Harman, a rare opportunity to hear Ishiuchi Miyako talk about her work. This will be an illustrated conversation. Ishiuchi Miyako will be assisted with interpretation by filmmaker, Linda Hoaglund. Book your tickets here.

Ishiuchi Miyako © Maki Ishii

The prestigious £25,000 Charles Wollaston Award has been won by artist Uta Kögelsberger for her video work CULL in the Royal Academy’s 254th Summer Exhibition. Established in 1978 and presented to the ‘most distinguished work’ in the exhibition, it is one of the most significant art prizes awarded in the UK. 

CULL follows the gigantic task of the clear-up process after the devastating impact of wildfires. It charts the efforts of the teams responsible for cutting down the dead trees left standing that are now endangering the remaining structures and roads. In a swansong to the unique ecosystem that has been lost each tree is documented as it comes crashing to the ground, seemingly out of nowhere, like dead carcasses, sometimes falling with such force that the earth beneath it shakes. In this orchestrated choreography we humans become visible, only on occasion, dwarfed by the magnitude of the disaster we have created.

Video Still, Cull, Five Channel Video Installation

CULL sits nestled within the wider, ongoing project Fire Complex that Kögelsberger initiated after the Castle Fire destroyed 174000 acres of Sequoia National Forest, California, including an estimated 14% of the world Giant Sequoia population. Fire Complex aims to raise momentum and resources for the regeneration of these forests. The artworks of Fire Complex were originally exhibited on billboards, directly becoming agents in the public realm. This is a project that communicates a universal emergency and sets about making a difference for the future.

It involves a collaborative community-based replanting project that to date has put over 6500 new trees in the ground. This aspect of the Fire Complex was developed in collaboration with USDA Forest Services, Cal Fire, Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, the communities of Sequoia Crest, Alpine Village and Cedar Slope and with the help of volunteers from the Rotary Club, as well as local schools.  The work has been developed with the support of Newcastle University, Alchemy Media (USA), Standard Vision (USA) and Buildhollywood (UK) and has been exhibited in the UK and across Los Angeles.

After 16 years of leadership, Brett Rogers, OBE, HonFRPS, announces today she will be leaving her role as Director of The Photographers’ Gallery – the UK’s foremost centre for photography – at the end of 2022.

Following the success of The Photographers’ Gallery’s 50th anniversary programme in 2021 and the launch of Soho Photography Quarter - the Gallery’s ambitious new free, permanent outdoor exhibition space, which opened last month, Rogers’ planned departure marks the end of an extraordinary period of growth and creative evolution for the internationally acclaimed Gallery - founded in 1971 as the UK’s first public gallery dedicated to photography.

From 2006 - 2022, Rogers’ expansive vision and influential leadership at The Photographers’ Gallery has led to a range of momentous cultural presentations and institutional developments, both in London and abroad, taking place through a period of huge social, technological, and artistic transition for the photographic medium. Brett plans to maintain a connection with the photography world in a reduced capacity following her departure.

She was awarded the Royal Photographic Society's Outstanding Contribution award and an Honorary Fellowship in 2018. 

Brett Rogers’ key achievements have included, but are not limited to:

• The re-location of The Photographers’ Gallery in 2012, taking the Gallery from its first home in Great Newport Street to its current, purpose-built 5-floor space, with a dedicated floor for learning, designed by award winning Irish Architects O’Donnell + Tuomey. It is housed in a former textiles warehouse on Ramillies Street, in the heart of London’s vibrant West End.
• The launch of Soho Photography Quarter, a free and accessible public realm space in the streets surrounding the Gallery. Following 5 years of planning, the new space and bi-yearly programme of large-scale, public realm artworks and activities, including large-scale art friezes, cross-street banners and moving image projections, provides a unique opportunity for the Gallery to extend its programme outside, enabling wider audiences to experience some of the most innovative and dynamic artists working today.
• Staging critically and publicly acclaimed exhibitions such as solo presentations of Saul Leiter, Helen Levitt and Sunil Gupta, to thematic explorations including Made you Look: Dandyism and Black Masculinity, Feast for the Eyes: The Story of Food in Photography, The Feminist Avant Garde of the 1970s and Easter Rising 1916.
• Securing the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize as one of the most prestigious and long-standing prizes in the world of photography. Each year it highlights significant trends within contemporary photography and showcases the works of artists shaping today's international photography scene, having first launched in 1996. Recent winners include Deana Lawson (2022), Cao Fei (2021), Mohamed Bourouissa (2020), Susan Meiselas (2019) and Luke Willis Thompson (2018).
• Championing female photographers like Sally Mann, Taryn Simon, Noemi Goudal, Shirley Baker, Helen Levitt, Alex Prager, Helen Cammock, Rinko Kawauchi, Katy Grannan and Zineb Sedira, in a well-documented role supporting women and families in the photography industry, both through the women featured in TPG’s acclaimed exhibitions programme and as evidenced through her nurturing and supportive organisational environment.
• Appointing the Gallery’s first digital curator, to explore the effects of the digital realm on photography and visual culture, within the context of technological developments. Most recently, the current three-floor exhibition, How to Win at Photography, examines the relationship between photography and gaming culture.
• Establishing a dynamic, multi-form artistic programme, which has harnessed the different Gallery spaces to present diverse viewpoints, approaches and chronologies. Supporting both established and emergent talent - from Edward Burtynsky, Wim Wenders and Evgenia Arbugaeva, to Gregory Crewdson, Vivianne Sassen and Lorenzo Vitturi - Rogers' programme has given a platform to everything from vernacular photography to large scale studio production.
• Examining the local and global nature of photography and its presentation, bringing exhibitions as various as The World in London, a major public art project initiated by Rogers to coincide with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games; to curating a major British survey exhibition of work by 37 photographers - Work Rest and Play: British Photography Since the 1960s - to four Chinese cities in 2015-6; to focussing on the unique communities of the Gallery’s home in Soho, including 2020’s Shot in Soho featuring William Klein, Anders Petersen and Corinne Day.
• Placing education at the heart of the organisation, with a dedicated learning and events space and ensuring platforms and support for young people’s ideas and talent, including the free and low-cost Develop creative careers programme, public tours led by 14-19 year olds (Teen Tours), a new Extended Project Qualification in Photography for A-Level pupils and appointing the Gallery’s first under-25 Trustee in 2018; championing visual literacy through photography, including the ten-year Touchstone single photo display, ‘slow looking’ events and dedicated programmes related to visual literacy; and encouraging discussion and debate on photography’s role in society, through the Gallery’s programme of hundreds of talks, workshops and courses during her tenure.
• Setting up initiatives to identify, support and champion new photography talent, including Fresh Faced & Wild Eyed and more recently, the annual TPG New Talent award, exhibition, and mentoring programme, as well as supporting emerging photographers with first publications, ongoing, free networking events and portfolio review sessions.
• Foregrounding TPG's Print Sales Gallery - a dedicated ‘discovery’ space and the Gallery’s commercial representation arm, which with its own exhibitions, is a leading international barometer for the buying and collecting of photography, the proceeds for which are reinvested into the Gallery’s public programme.

A specially formed committee of trustees, led by TPG Chair of Trustees Matthew Stephenson and senior staff, has begun the considered process of looking for and appointing a new Director, with the aim of having Rogers’ successor in place by December 2022. With a particular responsibility to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, The Photographers’ Gallery has appointed global executive and board recruitment company, Saxton Bampfylde - experts in finding exceptional, diverse leaders for major organisations - to support the recruitment process, which will officially commence on 18 July.

This podcast (started in 2021) now has 30+ (and growing) conversations with photo artists who are predominantly interested in how photography has had and is having, a significant impact on the world we live in. It considers the use of photography in relation to environmental matters. Many participants employ historic processes and/or are investigating more sustainable options in their practice. Others speak about the photographers from the past who have inspired them.

Find out more at: https://anchor.fm/photopocene

The Loewentheil Collection, one of the world's leading collection of Chinese photography, is launching its first virtual exhibition of selections from the world’s largest and finest collection of early photography of China. Seizing Shadows: Rare Photographs by late Qing Dynasty Masters, is a virtual exhibition in English and Chinese, and is its first exhibition devoted to photographs by pioneering Chinese photographers.

The Loewentheil Collection’s virtual exhibition is filled with engaging multimedia content that includes never before digitized or published photographs by master Chinese photographers of the late Qing dynasty. Captivating lifelike animations preserve the aesthetics of the original photographs, and educational videos and descriptive text set these rare 150-year-old photographs in the context of China’s artistic, cultural, and dynastic history. Modern digital editing plays with the visual perspective of these photographs, giving visitors the experience of exploring and discovering the people, cities, and landscapes of 19th-century China.

The exhibition presents early photographs of sites and peoples of late Qing dynasty China as well as images of the ancient Chinese art that influenced these photographers. Visitors can zoom in and out of images created 150 years ago in China with the wet plate collodion process. This early and exacting photographic process, used by the first Chinese photographers, captured images on glass in intricate detail. A video in the exhibition illustrates the process. The selection of photographic masterpieces from the Loewentheil Collection in this virtual exhibition are placed within the history of photography and among China’s long cultural heritage of poetry, music, art, and more.  

The exhibition draws from the Loewentheil Collection, which was assembled over more than three decades of dedicated connoisseurship. The collection comprises about 14,000 photographs spanning the earliest days of paper photography from the 1850s through the 1930s, the majority from before 1900.

The exhibition presents photographs, many never before exhibited or digitized, by major early Chinese photographers and studios including Lai Fong, Liang Shitai, Pun Lun Studio, Tung Hing Studio, A Chan (Ya Zhen) Studio, Pow Kee Photographer Studio, Yu Xunling, and others. The photographs capture the ancient arts, landscapes, monumental architecture, dynamic street life, and diverse people of China.

Visit here:  www.loewentheilcollection.com

This is an exciting time to join the Libraries and Museums team as Curator, Photography. We recently acquired a major photographic archive of Document Scotland photojournalist, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, and have just launched a showcase of our James Valentine Photographic Collection at the V&A Dundee. In 2021 we opened the new Wardlaw Museum after a major capital project to extend and completely redisplay it, including the creation of a new temporary exhibitions space. We are in the process of redesigning our research and teaching support services and continue to expand our digitisation and online engagement with the collections.

With a degree in a relevant subject area, or equivalent knowledge of photography, photographic processes and collections management, the successful candidate will have a combination of curatorial and project management experience, interpretative skill, and ideally some experience in Higher Education contexts. Working alongside specialist collections and curatorial staff, as well as staff in the Experience and Engagement team, the postholder will join an active and ambitious Libraries and Museums unit at an exciting moment of change and renewal.

Further information and informal enquiries may be directed to Jessica Burdge, email: jab8@st-andrews.ac.uk or Dr Catriona McAra, email: cfmc1@st-andrews.ac.uk

 Details: https://www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/3426/0/355863/889/curator-photography-ad3938sb