Looking to the present, looking to the past - 3

The third, of a three-part series, led by Colin Pantall, consists of eight lectures, each with an experienced and knowledgeable speaker. Sign up for the series or book each event individually. 

This series of talks will create connections between the processes of making work and how local, international, ethical, creative and commercial concerns overlap in the  showing, publishing, and dissemination of  work. The talks will examine the photobook, the exhibition, the archive, collaborative work, the photo-festival, power, and regional identities.

Each Wednesday from 1800-2000 (GMT / BST from 31 March) a different speaker will give a view into how the understanding of images changes with context, with time, and with political imperatives. It will help you frame how you present your own work, and will help you understand how and why images from around the world have been made.

1. Exhibiting Photography – Hannah Watson / 3 March

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In Exhibiting Photography, Hannah Watson of T J Boulting Gallery will look at how to show work from multiple perspectives. She will look at how she set up and built her gallery, how art and commerce combine in the settings of the online space, the gallery, and the fair. She will also give insights into how ideas, practice, and the commercial overlap and how the photographer/artist can combine these elements in presenting their work to galleries.

2. Curating photography - Susan Bright / 10 March

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In exhibitions such as Face of Fashion, Home Truths, and Feast for the Eyes, Susan Bright has curated both her own long-term projects to show in different locations in different sites for different purposes. This talk will look at how Susan has curated her shows using light, space, colour, sequencing, and collaboration. It will look at the different psychological spaces of curation and the ways in which the can serve the visual, the intellectual, the emotional, or the personal.

3. Cultural, political and personal identity in Mexican and Latin American photography - Ana Casas Broda / 17 March

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Mexico and Latin America are marked by social and political struggles, cultural and ethnic contrasts. With more than 300 indigenous communities that preserve pre-Hispanic traditions, living side by side with mestizos and foreigners, Mexico is one of the most diverse and complex countries in the world. This talk will look at how, in the last 15 years, the democratization of access to internet, social media and photographic devices have opened a new and amazing scenario in which communities outside the mainstream art scene in Mexico are creating new representations that address their own cultural and personal identity in ways that integrate their ancient cosmovision with contemporary photography.

4. Photography, Illustration and Flora – Gem Toes-Crichton / 24 March

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When Anna Atkins made the first photobook in 1843, flora of different types have been at the forefront of photography. In this lecture, Gem Toes-Crichton will examine the history of flora in photography, the overlap between flora and multiple alternative processes (beginning with Atkins’ cyanotypes). She will also look at how photography, illustration, and science have overlapped in images of flora, and why illustration remains the preferred method of record at many of the herbaria around the world today (including the one where Gem has made her own work).

5. Collaboration and Queerness – Anthony Luvera / 31 March

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Anthony Luvera has worked with collaboration for almost 20 years, exploring different ways in which the dynamics of agency, power, representation, and ethics overlap in a socially engaged practice. In this talk, Anthony will share some of the strategies he employs using photographs, text, pedagogy, digital spaces, and oral history recordings. Focusing on his work with queer communities across the United Kingdom, he will examine the limits of collaboration, questions of agency, representational responsibility, and the tension between process and outcomes in collaborative practice.

6. The personal, the historical, the political: Disecting In the Shadow of the Pyramids - Laura El-Tantawy / 7 April

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In 2014, Laura El-Tantawy published In the Shadow of the Pyramids. Predominantly photographed during the uprising in Egypt during the 2011 Arab Spring, it was a protest book that combined images of the demonstrations  with a personal passage of grief and self-discovery. In the years following the revolution, the optimism and hope has disappeared as Egypt has entered an even more repressive period of its history. In this talk, Laura will question her original personal take on the period, examining how the image can  connect to broader visual, historical and political narratives.

7. Africa in the Photobook - Ben Krewinkel / 14 April 

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In this talk Ben Krewinkel will examine the history of the photobook in Africa over the last 150 years. He will examine the role photography played in upholding colonial power in Africa, in missionary schools, in the independence movement, to the present day. The production, purpose, and audience of photobooks that include propaganda, personality cult, and protest books will also be examined.

8. Establishing a festival – Nayantara G Kakshapati / 21 April 

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Nayantara Gurung Kakshapati runs Photo Kathmandu, a biennial photo-festival that, from small beginnings, has grown to be renowned for its engagement with community, with urban architecture, and with the region. This lecture will look at how the festival has grown, how it links the local, the regional, and the international. It will also examine how the photo-festival has developed a burgeoning internationalism in photography, and ask what this means for the future of photographic arts.

Each talk will be accompanied by a 1-page handout of additional reading and references. 

For registrants of the whole series, each lecture will be recorded and made available for two weeks after the live presentation.