RPS Awards Talks... Lola Flash HonFRPS with Renée Mussai

Our Awards Talks Series - in partnership with Autograph - welcomes leading individuals to talk about how they use photography as artists, scientists, educators, publishers and curators. All our speakers are recent RPS Award recipients who have been recognised for their contribution to photography. 

Recordings from the series can be seen here: https://rps.org/awardstalks

Working at the forefront of genderqueer visual politics for more than three decades, photographer Lola Flash’s work challenges stereotypes and gender, sexual, and racial preconceptions. An active member of ACT UP during the time of the AIDS epidemic in New York City, Flash was notably featured in the 1989 “Kissing Doesn’t Kill” poster. With a practice firmly rooted in social justice advocacy around sexual, racial, and cultural difference, their art and activism are profoundly connected, fueling a life-long commitment to visibility and preserving the legacy of LGBTQIA+ and communities of colour worldwide.

Flash’s artworks are included in important international public and private collections and they currently are a proud member of the Kamoinge Collective and serve on the board of Queer Art. They received their bachelor's degree from Maryland Institute and Masters’ from the University of the Arts London. Flash received an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2021.

Renée Mussai is Senior Curator and Head of Curatorial & Collection at Autograph, London where she has worked for almost decades, advocating for a diverse constituency of contemporary artists and co-commissioning a range of artistic programmes. A scholar-curator with a special interest in African, Black European and diasporic lens-based practices, Mussai lectures and publishes internationally on photography, visual activism, cultural politics and curatorial care. Her recently edited volumes include the award-winning ‘Lina Iris Viktor: Some Are Born to Endless Night – Dark Matter’ (2020); her writing has appeared in various books, journals and anthologies, including Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art. She is Research Associate in the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg; Associate Lecturer at University of the Arts London; and regular guest curator and former non-resident fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. She currently serves on the Royal Photographic Society’s Awards, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion advisory committees, as well as Fast Forward: Women in Photography, amongst others.

Our first three conversations of 2022 will be held in partnership with Autograph, a London-based international, non-profit photographic arts charity with a remit in photography and film, critically engaging with issues of cultural identity, representation, human rights, and social justice.

The 'in conversation' will be followed by a public Q+A. Questions will be taken by Zoom chat or can be emailed in advance. Your Zoom link will be sent in PDF with your booking confirmation. 

Image: Thato Safrca from Lola Flash's ‘[sur]passing’ project