Yale Conference Proceedings: Photography and Britishness

This video-recording was made at the conference Photography and Britishness, held at the Yale Center for British Art on November 4 – 5, 2016. The conference was the result of a collaboration between the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, and the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino—three research institutions that have a converging interest in British art.  The conference sought to investigate the various ways in which notions of “Britishness” have been communicated, inflected, and contested through the photographic image.

Panel Discussion, Chaired by John Tagg, with responses from Angela Kelly, Simon Roberts, and Ego Sowinski Ahaiwe

This panel, chaired by John Tagg, brought together three photographers, Angela Kelly, Simon Roberts and Ego Sowinski Ahaiwe, to discuss how their photographic practices intersect with the concept of Britishness. Examining issues such as identity and belonging, immigration and travel, and the documentation of diverse British experiences and identities within the photographic archive, these practitioners reflect on the work of the photographic image in constructing, reflecting and challenging notions of Britain and Britishness.

It was not a conference about the history of photography in Britain, or about British photography. Rather, it sought to consider the nature of the relationship between photography and Britishness: the notion that photography can capture images of Britishness, at the same time that our sense of what Britishness constitutes is produced by the photographic image. A key question for the conference was whether Britishness can have a photographic referent—or whether it is itself an effect of representation. Speakers at the conference approached these questions from a wide range of perspectives and focusing on a diverse number of photographic materials—from family albums and studio portraits to advertisements, reportage, and aerial photography—which demonstrated the complexities and instabilities not only of the term Britishness, but also of the medium of photography.

You can view all of the recordings, which are introduced by Martina Droth and Sarah Victoria Turner.