Photography research: visualising history from the margins

Research in photography at the University of Brighton has given a renewed public presence to previously obscured or marginalised histories. Through practice-led photography research, as well as the historical and critical study of photographs and photographic collections, researchers have worked in collaboration with public institutions, museum professionals and community activists to bring greater understanding of communities that have been subject to forms of economic exploitation, political oppression and social marginalisation.

A long-standing, major strength at the university, our photography researchers have developed a distinctive combination of practice-based, curatorial and historical methodologies that address questions of public history and cultural memory. Since 2010, researchers have ‘reactivated’ archives and worked with displaced records of conflict-torn environments at sites in Canada, Chile and South Africa, and their interconnections to Britain, France and Spain.

In the hands of these researchers, photography has been used as a medium to examine and represent forms of global interconnectedness, leading to new understandings of place and identity. It has changed the way in which archivists understand the value of photographs as a means of engaging audiences and communicating historical understanding, while at the same time invigorating approaches to the interpretation of photographs. Research has validated the lives and experiences of mining communities in Chile, working class and immigrant communities in Toronto and Paris, and communities subject to forced removal in Cape Town.

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Photography research helps understand the traces of industrial imperialism

In Chile, the AHRC-funded project ‘Traces of Nitrate’, led by photographer Xavier Ribas and art historian Dr Louise Purbrick, studied the visual histories and material legacies of British investment in Chilean nitrate mines resulting in several works including the exhibition work and publication, Trafficking the Earth. The communities of the Atacama Desert (Chile) are among the most economically exploited in the world and were subject to extreme political repression during the Pinochet years.

Examining sites, artefacts and images, the research traced the route of nitrate from natural mineral state processed in the Atacama Desert through transported commodity and stock market exchange value to become part of the material and symbolic inheritance of London mansions and country estates. The research generated new photographic studies of geographically disparate but historically connected landscapes, accompanied by an analysis of nitrate’s visual and material culture. 

Through exhibitions and public workshops, the photographic research has given visibility to individual and community experiences through the political focus of documenting the inequalities of the extractive industries. In Chile, the research has served as an inspiration and a resource for environmental and mining activists, including Fundación Relaves, who said that connections made through the research have enabled them ‘to generate a more effective fight against the mining industry and its devastating consequences on the environment’.

Exhibitions in Spain included the Nitrate exhibition, launched together with a publication, at Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) in 2014, which attracted over 53,000 visitors, and the exhibition Tierra/Earth on the relationship between art and extractive processes at the Centro de Arte y Naturaleza (2019 – 2020) an exhibition curated in direct response to the 'Traces of Nitrate' research work in Chile.. This exhibition attested to the capacity of the research to provoke and inform, in the words of the director, "urgent public debates … about the extractive industries and how their effects can be recorded and represented." Trafficking the Earth was acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum for their photographic collection.

Black and white photography of desert landscape with distant hills. To the far left a tower structure, to the far right a ruined building, evidence of mined land dominates the image. Research photography by Xavier Ribas for Traces of Nitrate, Desert Trail

Hand holds a book of photographic images to show Pages 28 and 51 and the black and white photograph of a destroyed high-rise building that goes through the fold. Photographs collected and analysed by Xavier Ribas and Louise Purbrick in Traces of Nitrate.

The Traces of Nitrate project included innovative displays of photography in book and exhibition form, Trafficking the Earth, by Xavier Ribas, Louise Purbrick and Ignacio Acosta.

Julia Winckler's photographic research uncovers inner-city childhood history 

In Toronto and Paris, archival and photographic research by Dr Julia Winckler has revealed a complex picture of the representation of children in public space, making visible connections between working class migrant neighbourhoods caught up in processes of rapid change.

The Wished-for City (SSHRC-funded, 2013 – 2017) combined research methods from social work, photography and archival scholarship. Led by Professor Adrienne Chambon at the University of Toronto, it resulted in a major exhibition From Streets to Playgrounds: Representing Children in Early 20th Century Toronto, at the City of Toronto Archives Gallery, centred on archival photographs of a poor neighbourhood in Toronto once populated by immigrant families.

Together with colleagues at Ryerson University and University of Toronto, Winckler studied largely forgotten archive collections, and revealed visual histories of children photographed at work and play. Her research drew on extensive experience of examining the role of photography as a medium through which collective memories can be reconstructed and given a renewed cultural presence to enrich the public. The resulting exhibition brought new understandings of inner-city childhood histories and produced new intergenerational perspectives, prompting emotional responses and public debate in the media (Radio Canada, National Post, L'Express, Toronto.com), which focused on changing attitudes to children in public space: "Vous ne pouvez pas imaginer nos enfants d’aujourd’hui dans la rue, comme dans ce temps-là. Ils possédaient les rues, c’était leur espace."

Its impact was reinforced by a companion exhibition on the displacement of the urban poor in Paris, Les Enfants de la Cité Lesage-Bullourde et Boulogne Billancourt, Paris 1950s, at the Alliance Française Pierre Leon Gallery in Toronto, which was sponsored by Alliance Française and comprised historical photographs by Marilyn Stafford digitised and meticulously restored by Winckler. This exhibition testified to the ubiquity of practices of demolition and dispersal and attracted extensive media coverage. 

Former residents of the Cité Lesage neighbourhood recognised their own childhood experiences in the photographs and developed a dialogue with Winckler, bringing their unique experiences to the subsequent Paris exhibition and research event, while Marilyn Stafford herself said: "it means a lot to me that these photographs have so much meaning to other people now, people with personal connections to this part of Paris […] I am delighted that these children are coming back to life."

Julia Winckler’s photography research has invigorated museum education and public discourse. In a journée d'etudes at the Maison de la Recherche de l'Université Sorbonne Nouvelle in November 2020, Julia Winckler brought together her research into the photography of children in urban spaces, reflecting on Les Enfants de la Cité and From Streets to Playgrounds, exhibitions that were not only visually stunning but also increased the extent and depth of public engagement with museum and archive material, fostering a more collaborative archival practice and enhancing the audience experience.

Black and white photograph taken 1912 of a street corner with a wide pavement and telegraph posts on the left. Two small girls are captured in the foreground and two small boys in the background. Arthur Goss, New Registry Office Site, May 15, 1912

Square book cover of "Les Enfants de la Cite... Paris 1950s", with black and white photograph of a group of young smiling children holding hands. In front a little girl rests on one knee, behind her a boy holds up two fingers. They are on a rundown stree

Photographer and researcher Julia Winckler activated archive photography through her research, drawing new audiences and appreciation: [top] Arthur Goss, New Registry Office Site, May 15, 1912, City of Toronto Archives; [bottom] Book cover with photograph by Marilyn Stafford c.1950.

Research on dislocated photographs illuminates cultural heritage and post-apartheid memory

In Cape Town, Professor Darren Newbury’s research in collaboration with District Six Museum explored the value and significance of returning dislocated photographs representing difficult and painful histories. Through an exhibition co-curated with the museum, Darren Newbury extended his previous research on this collection into a South African context.

The photographs, made in the late 1940s and early 1950s, provided a unique and largely unknown visual record of a number of central and peripheral locations in Cape Town, including one of the most extensive records of Windermere, a peri-urban location, which was subject to forced removal to facilitate the creation of the racially segregated city. The collection had left South Africa for England in 1952 and was unknown to the communities documented. Combining Darren Newbury’s historical and curatorial research with the distinctive and widely cited community-based approach to cultural heritage and post-apartheid memory developed at the District Six Museum, the research reactivated the photographs through an exhibition and subsequent events.

As with with the work of Xavier Ribas and Julia Winckler, Darren Newbury’s photographic research has reshaped inclusive public histories. This research has enabled the museum to extend its coverage to under-represented areas of the city and deepen public understanding of the impact of apartheid policies. It gave visitors who suffered displacement the opportunity to reconnect and enabled other visitors to gain a deeper understanding of Cape Town’s fractured history. Donation of a digital version of the collection has further provided District Six Museum with a heritage resource, while the research has helped open broader consideration of instances of displacement and informed current debates about ownership of city spaces. 

Darren Newbury's research further contributed to the educational programme supporting the exhibition and raising awareness of forced removals. A special site tour was developed, enabling photographers and visitors to visit the sites documented in the exhibition. The research has continued to enhance the work of the museum in its engagement with ex-residents, youth groups in Cape Town and District Six Museum visitors. In 2014, photographs from the exhibition contributed to visual literacy workshops as part of the Restoring Humanity project to prepare community youth facilitators from historically segregated townships for work on sites of memory. 

 

Faded and double exposed black and white photograph of a black father and daughter, smartly dressed on the rail of a ship, looking at New York, the Statue of Liberty visible.

Professor Darren Newbury was given The Royal Anthropological Institute's 2020 Photographic Studies Award for his contribution to the study of anthropology and photography, work that has been extended in his recent co-edited book, Women and Photography in Africa: Creative Practices and Feminist Challenges.

Image from Perspectives Americaines, October 1961. United States Information Agency collection, US National Archives, College Park, Maryland.

Building on Brighton's legacy of research in photography

Drawing on their international reputation in photography, the university’s researchers have changed the way images can be used to help us engage with our history and identity. From playing a key role in reconciling divided communities to creating the way public projects are recorded and displayed, these innovative practices have demonstrated the cultural impact the medium can have.

Former Professor Mark Power, a member of the prestigious, international Magnum group, said, during his years with the university: “For me, photography has real legitimacy as a medium of critical artistic significance within the wider cultural economy and public sphere.” His projects, in which large-format camera work produces astonishing effects of light and line, have given new interpretative context to a number of popular national icons and local people, including the BBC’s Shipping Forecast and the documentation of construction projects such as the Millenium Dome.

The reputation in photography developed by  major practitioners and theorists has allowed the University of Brighton to play a key role in the engagement of audiences with photographic work. Forming and supporting exhibitions and publications, including the Brighton Photo Biennial, the university has encouraged and contributed to critical debate around the changing uses and increasing cultural prominence of the medium, whether this is in the methods of visual storytelling that develop identity, or in the cultural position of photography in the public sense of heritage.

In recent years, through the international projects outlined above, photography research from the University of Brighton has been at the heart of new appreciation of historically marginalised or oppressed communities, how records of their plight are understood and accessed and what the true reparative potential of the legacy might be.

Find out more about photography research at the University of Brighton at our Photography in Practice; Photography in Theory Research Group

 

 

Further examples of research excellence at the University of Brighton