Vestiges of Memory:
Intersections between photography and autobiographical memory

This programme may be subject to change

9.15am
Registration

10.00am
Welcome & introduction
Dr Sara Andersdotter

10.15am
Keynote:
Prof Annebella Pollen, Professor of Visual & Material Culture, University of Brighton

Photographic Firsts, Seen from a Distance: Adult Memories of Childhood Camera Experiences

Prof Annebella Pollen has a long-standing research interest in mass photography and the popular image, found photos, family albums, vernacular archives, amateur competitions, photographic publishing and the photographic industry. She has published extensively on photography, including her books Mass Photography: Collective Histories of Everyday Life (2015), and More Than a Snapshot (2023)

11.00am
Panel 1:
Memoir, autobiography & post memory: Photographic stories mediated by the past and present
Chaired by Miranda Hutton

Panel discussion and Q&A will follow papers by:

Max Ferguson, University of the Arts London (LCC)
Whistling for Owls and Deadfall

Miranda Hutton, Canterbury Christ Church University
Caged Birds and Kingfishers: the shifting narratives of memory and autobiography in photographic practice

Kalpesh Lathigra, University of the Arts London (LCC)
Memoire Temporelle – Temporary Memory: What are our memories if not the mirrors we gaze into…

Dr Caroline Molloy, University for the Creative Arts
The Invention of Memory in the Age of Digital Photography

12.30pm
Lunch break

1.15pm
Panel 2:
Family stories & personal history: Acts of re/deconstruction 
Chaired by Dr Sara Andersdotter

Panel discussion and Q&A to follow papers by:

Kate Carpenter, Photographer & independent researcher
Shakes of the Kaleidoscope: family, photography and the fragmentation of memory

Phil Hill, Photographer & independent researcher
The Absence of the Photograph: Re-evaluating personal histories through photographic archive and its objects

Kamal Badhey, PhD candidate at the University of Brighton 
Reflections on Portals and Passageways

2.45pm
Panel 3:
Photographic entanglements: Autobiography & embodiment 
Chaired by Prof Jean Wainwright

Panel discussion and Q&A to follow papers by:

Greig Burgoyne, University for the Creative Arts
To picture, is not to remember

Fergus Heron, University of Brighton
Ordinary Places and Remembered Pictures

3.40pm
Break

4.00pm
Panel 4:
Mnemonics of loci: Conflict, memory, place
Chaired by Dr Anna Frances Douglas

Panel discussion and Q&A to follow papers by:

Sian Gouldstone, Bournemouth University
Negotiating Nostalgia, Folding Photographs: a practice-led critical examination of whiteness, as a politics of belonging in suburban Naarm

Mireia Ludevid i Llop, Artist & PhD candidate at University of the Arts London 
My Grandfather was Born Underwater: Recovering Personal Memory through Autoethnographic Archive Practices

Dr Mischa Twitchin, Goldsmiths, University of London
Photographic Memories

5.30pm
End note and summary of the day
Dr Caroline Molloy

This programme may be subject to change

9.15am
Registration

9.45am
Welcome & introduction
Dr Sara Andersdotter

10.00am
Panel 5:
Acting out: Interpretation, reenactment and performance
Chaired by Sam Vale

Panel discussion and Q&A to follow papers by:

Clare Bottomley, Falmouth University and PhD candidate at Aalto University
Visual Echoes: Destabilising memories through Photographic Re-enactment

Dr Ana Janeiro, IHA-NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST / ESCS-IPL / CREAM-University of Westminster
Embodying the family album: acts of performance

Prof Richard Sawdon Smith, Norwich University of the Arts
A Life Lived Through Photography: The Living Archive

11.35am
Panel 6:
Raw and tender: Regarding the pain of trauma 
Chaired by Dr Caroline Molloy

Panel discussion and Q&A to follow papers by:
 
Gail Flockhart, Artist & PhD candidate at University of Plymouth 
Trauma, Trace and Memory in Photographic Practice: A Diffractive Posthuman Approach

Susanne Hakuba, Photographer & independent researcher
Processing (trans-generational) trauma from the perpetrator & bystander perspective of a German family through images

Celine Marchbank, Falmouth University and the University of the Arts London
A Stranger in My Mother’s Kitchen

1.00pm
Lunch break

1.45pm
Panel 7:
Leaky archives: (re)encounters and traces of the untold
Chaired by Prof Richard Sawdon Smith

Panel discussion and Q&A to follow papers by:

Pelumi Odubanjo, curator & PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow
Fragmented Traces and Archival Re-encounters in the Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti Collection

Sam Vale, Coventry University
Latent: Uncovering secret gestures and unconscious (autobiographical) practices in the South East Archive of Seaside Photography

2.45pm
Keynote:
Hrair Sarkissian, photographer

Auto-Portrait 

Syrian photographer and artist Hrair Sarkissian’s practice draws on personal narratives, collective memory and trauma in evocative, poignant projects that discuss local and wider social and historical issues. He earned his foundational training at his father’s photographic studio in Damascus. Spanning photography, moving image, sculpture, sound and installation, Sarkissian’s practice creates meditative dreamscapes in some moments; deathscapes in others—sites where the muted voice, absent from the frame, is temporarily offered space to breathe. He was recently shortlisted for this year's Deutsche Börse Prize for his 2022-23 exhibition The Other Side of Silence at Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht.

3.35pm
End note and summary of the symposium
Dr Sara Andersdotter

3.45pm
Social drinks and networking at the Old City Bar