Organised in collaboration with Kathleen Lawther, this event will feature six MEG members, from diverse institutions and backgrounds, working with photographic collections. The speakers will include:

Kathleen Lawther will discuss Werner Kissling’s photographs and the recreation and salvage of past times through staged photos. 

Jocelyn Dudding will reflect on the language used in photographic records – ‘shoot’, ‘framed’, ‘captured’ – emphasising that portraits are made not taken, and urging consideration of ownership and language in engaging with photographs as archives.

Rebekah Hodgkinson will share insights from her PhD with the National Trust Keddleston Hall and Curzon, highlighting the challenges she faced in accessing collections during the lockdown, and demonstrating the potential of editing and playing with images. 

Brionny Widdis will raise questions about ownership, custodianship, ethics, meanings, and the degree of consent within images. 

Enzo Hamel will present his PhD project focussing on ethnographic photographs made by Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson and Reo Fortune in Papua New Guinea at the beginning of the 20th century, and emphasising the significance of indigenous agency and perspectives in the study of photographic collections.  

After the presentations, participants will have the opportunity to have a long discussion around the topic in small breakout rooms.