Discourses of Photography in the V&A Collection

Academic context:
Recent scholarship on photography engages critically and analytically with close readings of works, drawing upon an interdisciplinary approach that includes discourse theory, philosophical approaches to art and language, art history and theory, psychoanalytical and semiological studies, and literary theory. Exemplary works include: Bate, Photography and Surrealism (2004); Edwards, Allegories (2006); Tagg, Disciplinary Frame (2009); Mavor, Reading Boyishly (2007).
This proposal aims to undertake new research based upon a specific case study: photography in the V&A collection.
Aims and objectives:
Previously, work using specific collections has tended to take the form of exhibitions accompanied by a descriptive or critical argument and are aimed at a large audience, well beyond an academic context. Well-known precedents are Szarkowski, Mirrors and Windows (MOMA New York 1978) and Haworth Booth, Things - a Spectrum of Photography (V&A 2004). This proposed project intends to integrate the scholarship of recent works on photography with the material, physical and discursive object of study that constitute a collection. It aims to draw upon the expertise of three supervisors that represent the related fields of research of the project: Professor Olivier Richon (RCA): photographic practice and theories of representation; Professor Yve Lomax (RCA/Goldsmiths): critical and philosophical approaches to writing on art and writing as art; Martin Barnes, Curator of Photography, V&A, an expert on the organization, conservation and interpretation of documents from the V&A archives. The project will consolidate and expand an existing relationship between the RCA and the V&A. The Collection itself offers an inclusive approach to Photography, based upon genres, disciplines and quality. The student will be asked to propose an investigation that centres on specific themes, interests, forms of classifications and documentation. The student will construct a specific corpus that will form the basis for description and interpretation, the aim being to unearth new relations between bodies of work, looking at overlooked meanings and representations. The research aims to engage with new forms of writing, that considers academic scholarship as well as more open subjective readings of an image and a text. It addresses the question of writing as a form that produces meaning and interpretation. The model, however, is not fiction or 'creative writing', but writing as a critical, creative and theoretical mode of investigation that articulates and constructs new meanings from photographic representations. Ideally, the student will be a practising photographer and be able to write and comment analytically and conceptually on the Collection. The applicant will also comment pictorially upon the collection, in the form of a photo essay. This is a specific methodological approach that proposes to integrate an element of photographic practice within the research. Indicative models for this approach are found in the photographic works of Burgin, Components of a Practice (2008); Leonard, Analog (2007) and Welling, Photographs 1974 - 1999 (2000).The research will be by thesis, with an element of photographic practice attached to it. The ideal applicant would be a researcher with an MA in Photography, who can demonstrate the interrelation between theory, criticism and photographic practice and who has a strong interest in writing as a practice. Applicants with an MA in Fine Art, Art History and Visual Studies will also be encouraged to apply.
Benefits:
The research will produce new knowledge and develop new modes of writing on photographic images from the V&A Collection. Direct application will be in the field of teaching photography and visual culture, in curating and archiving, and in writing as a form of acquiring knowledge. It will benefit s

Those that will benefit from the research include:

The research student
Photography practitioners
Museum curators
Educationalists
Commercial gallery sector
General public

The research student will gain professional experience and training working with a high profile, experienced museum curator and his team, in conjunction with specialist academic supervisors.

Photography practitioners, artists using photography and writers on photography will benefit from a research that seeks new ways of engaging critically, creatively and practically with the discourses and practices of photography.

Museum curators will be interested in new attempts to classify, describe and interpret a high profile archive. They will be exposed to new methodologies, like the use of photography to comment upon photography in an academic and museum context.

Educationalists within the HE sector from photography, fine art, visual studies and art history courses will benefit from research that may be used for their own curriculum developments.

The commercial sector of art and photography galleries will be interested in research that may help them to identify new trends and approaches to the medium.

Policy makers in the arts sector will learn from a new collaborative project between an academic institution and a public museum that helps to form new networks of knowledge.

Photography attracts a large general public, as demonstrated by high attendance figures to photography exhibitions. The research will increase the awareness of the V&A collection as an important national resource.

Mechanisms to ensure that these interest groups will benefit from the research include a variety of modes of dissemination that include:
Publication of the thesis as a book;
Papers presented at conferences;
Papers published in academic and referred journals;
Portfolio and articles in specialist but non-academic magazines;
Participation in public exhibitions, such as the RCA graduating show, that attract high attendance figures (e.g. the 2010 Final Show attracted in excess of 12,000 people), and within the V&A education programme.

Dissemination of the outcomes are expected to take up to two years after the completion of the thesis.