Online workshop organised by De Montfort University in partnership with Black Country Visual Arts and ReFramed with support from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art | 27 October 2022, 10:00-15:00 (BST / UTC+1)
Livestream Programme
The State of Cultural Diversity in British Photography intends to explore how artistic literacy, educational access, and institutional policies have conditioned the participation of British communities of colonial heritage in the production of British art and visual culture.
• How have culturally differentiated approaches to artistic literacies within British society influenced access to formal photographic training?
• What strategies have British citizens of colonial heritage developed to introduce and normalise the presence of their photographs in public?
• To what extent has the rising interest in safeguarding the diversity of British cultural heritage both enabled and limited the ability of British photographic practitioners of colonial heritage to participate in British culture as equals among equals?
Bringing together practitioners, curators, community activists, scholars, and policymakers from UK culture and heritage institutions, the workshop will consider such and related questions. In doing so, it will establish a platform for discussion of the realities experienced by culturally marginalised photography practitioners in their attempts to operate within British culture.
Presenters will focus on three key lines of inquiry while drawing on historical and theoretical sources as well as on personal and professional experiences. They will endeavour to unpack the notion of British photography. They will consider the role photography plays in educational empowerment. They will also analyse institutional and community photographic initiatives geared towards enhancing equality, diversity and inclusion in the development of British culture.
Special attention will be given to photographic initiatives, projects, and collections developed by British cultural minorities in England’s multi-ethnic region of the Midlands as a means of claiming their right for cultural recognition in British society and its culture institutions.
It is also hoped that The State of Cultural Diversity in British Photography will form a productive occasion for knowledge exchange about the implications for current academic and third-sector organisations endeavouring to decentralise/decolonise art and visual culture.
Livestreamed online, the event will enable discussion and debate among the participants while also providing the means for engagement with comments and questions from the public.
PROGRAMME
10.00-10.15 INTRODUCTION
Anand Chhabra & Gil Pasternak | Welcoming Remarks
10.15-11.30 PANEL I: UNPACKING BRITISH PHOTOGRAPHY
Justin Carey (Photographer) | Visual Erasure and the Rise of Advocacy
Kamal Badhey (Educator, researcher and photographer) | Image-making Practices of Migrant and Diaspora Communities in the Midlands: Expanding the Canon
Lydia Caston (Victoria and Albert Museum) | Revisiting “Staying Power”: A Case Study on Collaborative Collecting
Jermaine Francis (Photographer and writer) | A Post-industrial Daydream
11.30-11.45 BREAK
11.45-12.45 PANEL II: EDUCATIONAL EMPOWERMENT AND RESTRAINTS
Jagdish Patel (Artist, educator, and writer) | Race, Class and the Photography Curriculum
Anand Chhabra & Gil Pasternak (Black Country Visual Arts & De Montfort University, respectively) | Digital Community Archives, Local History Education and Britain's Photographic Imagination
Giya Makondo-Wills (Photographer and educator) | How to Empower Minority Students When Undertaking a Body of Work
12.45-13.30 BREAK
13.30-14.30 PANEL III: INSTITUTIONAL AND COMMUNITY ENDEAVOURS
Laura Phillips (Derby Museums) | Participation and Power: A View from Derby Museums
Sebah Chaudhry (Creative producer and curator) | Photographers of Colour Navigating the Art Scene
Ismail Khokon (Photographer) | At the Crossroads
14.30-15.00 DISCUSSION AND CLOSING REMARKS
Bookings will close 1 hour prior to the start of the event, and registrants will receive a link to join the online event 24hrs before the event, via their provided email address.
Please contact the DMU Events Office on eventsoffice@dmu.ac.uk if you have any questions.
This event is open to all.
For post-event queries please contact Professor Gil Pasternak, Chair of Photographic Cultures and Heritage at De Montfort University