This 3 day international conference, held 22-24 November 2024, brought together curators, archivists, artists, and scholars and researchers across disciplines, such as art history, visual culture, photography, museum, curating and archival studies, to explore international shifts in museum practices and their implications for global photographic cultures.
Over 150 delegates attended in Sunderland, UK and online from 25 countries.
Photography entered the museum shortly after its invention in the 19th century, serving as a reproduction tool, a scientific process, a printmaking method, and an expressive medium. However, precisely because of these multiple functions, photography’s accommodation posed challenges then, as it does now with the mutable nature of contemporary “post-photographic,” born-digital images.
This conference sought to examine the past, current and future positioning of photography and its rich histories within museums.
Key questions explored include:
In an era of “massification” of images, how can museums collect analogue and born-digital photography strategically to create relevant and sustainable photographic collections for the future?
In what ways institutional practices—in terms of collecting, accessioning, documentation, preservation, and accessibility—need to be adapted or what new methods are required to accommodate different types of photographic images, including “networked images” and “computational photography,” in museum collections?
How can photography’s vernacular cultures be collected and displayed in the physical and virtual museum?
How can normative exhibition practices be adapted to engage diverse transnational publics, online and on site?
How can photography be used as an accessible vehicle within the museum to consider broader social and political issues and processes?
How can museum practices facilitate a two-way interaction with audiences, enabling them to acquire agency in influencing what the museum does as a social site?
In what ways can photography within the museum context contribute to the decolonisation process for its audiences?
What does an inclusive transnational history of photography look like?
How may commissioning expand an institution’s discursive space?
Speakers:
Shahidul Alam, Photojournalist, Human Rights Activist, Founder of Drik, Pathshala and Chobi Mela (Bangladesh)
Martin Barnes, Senior Curator, Photography, V&A South Kensington (UK)
Michela Bresciani, Curator, Ecomuseo Urbano Metropolitano Milano Nord – EUMM (Italy)
Briony Carlin, Lecturer in Contemporary Art Curation, Newcastle University (UK)
Angela Cheung, Post-Doctoral Research Associate, SOAS (UK)
Giuseppe Chiavaroli, PhD Researcher, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy)
Agnese Ghezzi, Postdoctoral Researcher, LYNX – Center for the Interdisciplinary Analysis of Images, Contexts, Cultural Heritage, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca (Italy)
Fabrizio Gitto, PhD Researcher, University of Italian Switzerland and Research Fellow, LYNX – Center for the Interdisciplinary Analysis of Images, Contexts, Cultural Heritage, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca (Italy)
Sze Ying Goh, Curator, National Gallery Singapore (Singapore)
Alexandra Gow, PhD Researcher, University for the Creative Arts/National Galleries Scotland (UK)
Lucia Halder, Head of the Photography Collection, Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum (Germany)
John Kippin, Artist and Professor Emeritus in Photography, University of Sunderland (UK)
Sandra Križić Roban, Senior Scientific Advisor in Tenure, Institute of Art History, Zagreb (Croatia)
Jayne Knight, PhD Researcher, University of Brighton/National Science and Media Museum (UK)
Carol McKay, Independent Writer and Curator, (UK)
Alexandra Moschovi, Professor of Photography and Curating, University of Sunderland (UK)
Daniel Palmer, Professor of Contemporary Art and Cultural Theory and Associate Dean of Research and Innovation, RMIT University (Australia)
Christina Riggs, Professor (History of Visual Culture), Durham University (UK)
Amanda Ritson, Curator and Project Manager, NEPN at University of Sunderland (UK)
Colin Robins, Photographer and Lecturer in Photography, Plymouth University (UK)
Katrina Sluis, Associate Professor and Head of Photography and Media Arts, The Australian National University (Australia)
Baiba Tetere, Lecturer in Social Sciences, Riga Stradins University (Latvia)
Oliver Udy, Photographer and Head of Photography, Falmouth University (UK)
Liz Wells, Independent Writer and Curator, Professor Emeritus in Photographic Culture, University of Plymouth (UK)
