Photography of Protest and Community: The Radical Collectives of the 1970s

IF 0.3 2区 艺术学 0 ART History of Photography Pub Date : 2021-04-03 DOI:10.1080/03087298.2021.2079232
Samuel Ewing
{"title":"Photography of Protest and Community: The Radical Collectives of the 1970s","authors":"Samuel Ewing","doi":"10.1080/03087298.2021.2079232","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"In February 1976, the inaugural issue of the photography journal Camerawork ran a ‘Statement of Aims’ on its back cover, spelling out the ambitions of its freshly minted editorial team. Dedicated to forging new connections between photography and politics, the statement’s authors declaim that ‘Our central concern in photography [... ] is not “Is it art?” but, “Who is it for?”’ Photographic historian Noni Stacey draws readers’ attention to this particular statement early on in her book, viewing it as a keystone to understanding the lasting contributions of a number of photography collectives that emerged in 1970s London. These collectives, and the development of a mode of photographic production that Stacey identifies as ‘community photography’, are the subject of this archivally rich publication. Indeed, the great strength of Stacey’s book derives from the way she delves deep into the pragmatic, and often unresolved, debates of these practitioners themselves as they sought to build a politically viable photographic practice within Britain’s marginalised and underserved communities. Across six chapters, Stacey focuses on the most notable groups engaged in community photography during this period: those associated with the Half Moon Photography Workshop and affiliated journal Camerawork; the Hackney Flashers; the Exit Photography Group; the North Paddington Community Darkroom (NPCD); and the Blackfriars Photography Project (BPP). What readers encounter is a series of detailed microhistories that together sketch the contours of a practice that sparked heated critical and theoretical debates among politically committed photographers that extended far beyond its initial point of emergence. Photography of Protest and Community: The Radical Collectives of the 1970s had its genesis as a doctoral thesis, and the archival research and oral histories compiled by Stacey will remain a lasting contribution of this text. Stacey has a remarkable ability to let the tensions, contradictions and difficulties encountered by her protagonists remain a central part of the history, underscoring the rich complexity of community photography. By quoting her subjects liberally throughout the book, Stacey gives her readers the opportunity to grapple with a new corpus of primary sources. Above all, the approach indicates Stacey’s interest in the specificity of photographic practice rather than the theoretical battles that typically accompany such radical practices. In this way, scholars on the subject will view Stacey’s book as a welcome complement to other studies of the era’s politicised documentary practitioners, such as artist and curator Jorge Ribalta’s Not Yet: On the Reinvention of Documentary and the Critique of Modernism, 1972–1991 (2015). Chapter one lays the broad historical and methodological groundwork for the case studies that follow, beginning by distinguishing ‘community photography’ from other traditions of documentary practice. At its core, Stacey’s definition underscores the desire of its practitioners to shorten the distance between observer and observed through their embrace of alternative modes of production, distribution and reception of photographic work, as well as the collective, anti-hierarchical structures used to organise these efforts. Stacey’s historical argument is also pertinent to comprehending the political outlook of her book’s protagonists. She situates the development of these collectives in an era in which the legislative and representational politics of England failed to create the ‘classless’ society dreamed of in the 1960s. Stacey posits her subjects’ DIY, community-centred approach as a reaction to these political and economic shortcomings in addition to their general mistrust of the fractured political parties of the Left. It is also here that Stacey announces this community-oriented spirit as her own, explaining her aspirations for the book to be accessible to practitioners outside the academy. Subsequent chapters shift to a series of detailed accounts of specific collectives, venues and approaches that define community photography, beginning with the Half Moon Gallery (HMG) and associated figures in chapter two. The HMG was situated in the Whitechapel district of London’s East End, a neighbourhood defined by its working-class and immigrant communities who since the 1930s had been targets of reformist policy and documentary production through the government’s Mass Observation Project. Stacey pays special attention to Wendy Ewald, the gallery’s founder, and her desire to democratise the administering of the Reviews","PeriodicalId":13024,"journal":{"name":"History of Photography","volume":"45 1","pages":"202 - 204"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"History of Photography","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03087298.2021.2079232","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ART","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

In February 1976, the inaugural issue of the photography journal Camerawork ran a ‘Statement of Aims’ on its back cover, spelling out the ambitions of its freshly minted editorial team. Dedicated to forging new connections between photography and politics, the statement’s authors declaim that ‘Our central concern in photography [... ] is not “Is it art?” but, “Who is it for?”’ Photographic historian Noni Stacey draws readers’ attention to this particular statement early on in her book, viewing it as a keystone to understanding the lasting contributions of a number of photography collectives that emerged in 1970s London. These collectives, and the development of a mode of photographic production that Stacey identifies as ‘community photography’, are the subject of this archivally rich publication. Indeed, the great strength of Stacey’s book derives from the way she delves deep into the pragmatic, and often unresolved, debates of these practitioners themselves as they sought to build a politically viable photographic practice within Britain’s marginalised and underserved communities. Across six chapters, Stacey focuses on the most notable groups engaged in community photography during this period: those associated with the Half Moon Photography Workshop and affiliated journal Camerawork; the Hackney Flashers; the Exit Photography Group; the North Paddington Community Darkroom (NPCD); and the Blackfriars Photography Project (BPP). What readers encounter is a series of detailed microhistories that together sketch the contours of a practice that sparked heated critical and theoretical debates among politically committed photographers that extended far beyond its initial point of emergence. Photography of Protest and Community: The Radical Collectives of the 1970s had its genesis as a doctoral thesis, and the archival research and oral histories compiled by Stacey will remain a lasting contribution of this text. Stacey has a remarkable ability to let the tensions, contradictions and difficulties encountered by her protagonists remain a central part of the history, underscoring the rich complexity of community photography. By quoting her subjects liberally throughout the book, Stacey gives her readers the opportunity to grapple with a new corpus of primary sources. Above all, the approach indicates Stacey’s interest in the specificity of photographic practice rather than the theoretical battles that typically accompany such radical practices. In this way, scholars on the subject will view Stacey’s book as a welcome complement to other studies of the era’s politicised documentary practitioners, such as artist and curator Jorge Ribalta’s Not Yet: On the Reinvention of Documentary and the Critique of Modernism, 1972–1991 (2015). Chapter one lays the broad historical and methodological groundwork for the case studies that follow, beginning by distinguishing ‘community photography’ from other traditions of documentary practice. At its core, Stacey’s definition underscores the desire of its practitioners to shorten the distance between observer and observed through their embrace of alternative modes of production, distribution and reception of photographic work, as well as the collective, anti-hierarchical structures used to organise these efforts. Stacey’s historical argument is also pertinent to comprehending the political outlook of her book’s protagonists. She situates the development of these collectives in an era in which the legislative and representational politics of England failed to create the ‘classless’ society dreamed of in the 1960s. Stacey posits her subjects’ DIY, community-centred approach as a reaction to these political and economic shortcomings in addition to their general mistrust of the fractured political parties of the Left. It is also here that Stacey announces this community-oriented spirit as her own, explaining her aspirations for the book to be accessible to practitioners outside the academy. Subsequent chapters shift to a series of detailed accounts of specific collectives, venues and approaches that define community photography, beginning with the Half Moon Gallery (HMG) and associated figures in chapter two. The HMG was situated in the Whitechapel district of London’s East End, a neighbourhood defined by its working-class and immigrant communities who since the 1930s had been targets of reformist policy and documentary production through the government’s Mass Observation Project. Stacey pays special attention to Wendy Ewald, the gallery’s founder, and her desire to democratise the administering of the Reviews
查看原文
分享 分享
微信好友 朋友圈 QQ好友 复制链接
本刊更多论文
抗议与社区摄影:20世纪70年代的激进集体
1976年2月,摄影杂志《Camerawork》的创刊号在封底上刊登了一篇“目标声明”(Statement of Aims),阐述了新组建的编辑团队的雄心壮志。该声明的作者致力于在摄影和政治之间建立新的联系,他们宣称:“我们对摄影的核心关注……而不是“这是艺术吗?”而是“这是给谁的?”摄影历史学家Noni Stacey在她的书中把读者的注意力吸引到这一特别的陈述上,将其视为理解20世纪70年代伦敦出现的一些摄影集体的持久贡献的基石。这些集体,以及一种被Stacey称为“社区摄影”的摄影生产模式的发展,是这本档案丰富的出版物的主题。事实上,斯泰西这本书的强大之处在于,她深入探讨了这些实践者本身的实用主义,而这些争论往往是悬而未决的,因为他们试图在英国边缘化和服务不足的社区中建立一种政治上可行的摄影实践。在六个章节中,Stacey重点介绍了这一时期从事社区摄影的最著名的群体:与半月摄影工作室和附属杂志Camerawork相关的群体;哈克尼闪影者;出口摄影组;北帕丁顿社区暗房(NPCD);以及黑衣修士摄影计划(BPP)。读者看到的是一系列详细的微观历史,它们共同勾勒出一种实践的轮廓,这种实践在政治摄影师中引发了激烈的批评和理论辩论,远远超出了最初的出现点。《抗议与社区摄影:20世纪70年代的激进集体》的起源是一篇博士论文,史黛西编纂的档案研究和口述历史将是本书的持久贡献。斯泰西有一种非凡的能力,让她的主人公所遇到的紧张、矛盾和困难成为历史的中心部分,强调了社区摄影的丰富复杂性。通过在书中大量引用她的主题,斯泰西给她的读者提供了一个与新的主要来源语料库搏斗的机会。最重要的是,这种方法表明了斯泰西对摄影实践的特殊性的兴趣,而不是通常伴随着这种激进实践的理论斗争。通过这种方式,研究这一主题的学者将把斯泰西的书视为对这个时代政治化纪录片实践者的其他研究的一个受欢迎的补充,比如艺术家兼策展人豪尔赫·里巴尔塔的《尚未:纪录片的重塑和现代主义批判,1972-1991》(2015)。第一章为接下来的案例研究奠定了广泛的历史和方法论基础,首先将“社区摄影”与其他传统的纪录片实践区分开来。在其核心,斯泰西的定义强调了实践者的愿望,即通过他们对摄影作品的生产、分发和接受的替代模式的拥抱,以及用于组织这些努力的集体、反等级结构,缩短观察者和被观察者之间的距离。史黛西的历史观点也有助于理解书中主人公的政治观点。她将这些集体的发展置于一个时代,在这个时代,英国的立法和代表政治未能创造出20世纪60年代所梦想的“无阶级”社会。斯泰西认为,她的研究对象的DIY、以社区为中心的方法,除了对分裂的左翼政党的普遍不信任之外,也是对这些政治和经济缺陷的一种反应。也正是在这里,Stacey宣布这种面向社区的精神是她自己的,并解释了她希望这本书能够被学院以外的从业者所接受。随后的章节转向一系列具体的集体,场所和定义社区摄影的方法的详细描述,从第二章中的半月画廊(HMG)和相关人物开始。HMG位于伦敦东区的白教堂区,这是一个由工人阶级和移民社区定义的社区,自20世纪30年代以来,他们一直是改革政策和纪录片制作的目标,通过政府的大规模观察项目。斯泰西特别关注画廊创始人温迪·埃瓦尔德(Wendy Ewald),以及她希望将评论管理民主化的愿望
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 去求助
来源期刊
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
50.00%
发文量
23
期刊介绍: History of Photography is an international quarterly devoted to the history, practice and theory of photography. It intends to address all aspects of the medium, treating the processes, circulation, functions, and reception of photography in all its aspects, including documentary, popular and polemical work as well as fine art photography. The goal of the journal is to be inclusive and interdisciplinary in nature, welcoming all scholarly approaches, whether archival, historical, art historical, anthropological, sociological or theoretical. It is intended also to embrace world photography, ranging from Europe and the Americas to the Far East.
期刊最新文献
The ‘Chok’ of Image ‘Constellations in Themselves’: Reframing Walter Benjamin’s ‘Little History of Photography’ (1931) Maria Morris Hambourg: A Curator Lighthouse for Photography Sandra S. Phillips with Allison Pappas and Natalie Zelt: Excerpt from Framing the Field Interview Transcript, 21–23 March 2022 Deborah Willis with Allison Pappas and Natalie Zelt: Excerpt from Framing the Field Interview Transcript, 8–9 June 2022 After the Flood: Notes on Photography and the Archive
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
现在去查看 取消
×
提示
确定
0
微信
客服QQ
Book学术公众号 扫码关注我们
反馈
×
意见反馈
请填写您的意见或建议
请填写您的手机或邮箱
已复制链接
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
×
扫码分享
扫码分享
Book学术官方微信
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术
文献互助 智能选刊 最新文献 互助须知 联系我们:info@booksci.cn
Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。
Copyright © 2023 Book学术 All rights reserved.
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号 京ICP备2023020795号-1