University professor wins major photographic culture award

The prestigious prize is awarded annually by the RAI Council to recognize the most distinguished contributions to the study of anthropology and photography.

For much of the past 20 years, Professor Darren Newbury has explored contemporary photography in South Africa during a period of huge change in the country. However, he explores a broader and highly topical canvas in his new 2020 book, Women and Photography in Africa: Creative Practices and Feminist Challenges (co-edited with Lorena Rizzo and Kylie Thomas).

During both the apartheid era and beyond, the camera played a key role in revealing life in an often turbulent South Africa, as it evolved after decades of overtly racist apartheid policies. His work can also reflect on the current era of Black Lives Matter, with its challenge to re-shape images of race and ideas around the history of racial relations. “BLM is also drawing on a history of civil rights activism - and its visual representation - in the US,” says Newbury.

Professor Darren Newbury

In acknowledging the award, Newbury notes how this latest success has come despite having had no formal training in anthropology. “It is a real honour to have my work recognised in this way by the Royal Anthropological Institute - and especially gratifying as someone who trained initially as a photographer, and has no academic grounding in the discipline of anthropology.”

Though he continues to examine photography in post-apartheid South Africa, Newbury's current work involves delving US Cold War archives to examine how the camera captured the intense political and cultural dynamic – what he calls a ‘photography of relations’ - from a period of 20th century history whose reverberations continue to ripple through the present day global arena.

Newbury's research has had a lasting influence on anthropological understanding of the social role of photography and the ethnography of visual culture in South Africa. He has also influenced the development of curatorial practice – notably through key exhibitions of photographer Bryan Heseltine at Oxford's world-renowned Pitt Rivers Museum (2011) and the District Six Museum in Cape Town (2013). He has also helped highlight the important role of previously overlooked photographers such as Ernest Cole, whose work has only recently been rediscovered.

The Pitt Rivers Museum's Head of Curatorial, Research and Teaching, Dr Christopher Morton, hailed the RAI award, citing a reviewer who applauded Newbury's ability to explore complex histories with 'remarkable empathy, intelligence and panache'. “I can't think of three better words to sum up Darren's contribution to the field,” says Morton.