MY MUSEOLOGY

In the publications  Photography/Politics: One  (1979) and  Photography/Politics: Two  (1986), Jo Spence as part of Photography Workshop sought, through an expansive definition of the titular terms, to address interferences between photography and politics across the history of the medium. Through also focusing on the role of institutions, and particularly as financing entities, the editors and contributors demonstrate the multifarious ways that we are unconsciously subject to the camera’s and photography’s power. While our consciousness of this potential may be comparatively better understood in today’s photographically saturated and occasionally more sceptical cultures, pondering on the revelations of  Photography/Politics  proves nonetheless instructive. For instance, we learn that ways we are presented and present ourselves to the camera are often already determined by internalised modes of seeing, behaving and image-making through our exposure t...

In my eagerness to start this blog I realise that the first posts (of images taken at Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle) might seem just to hang aimlessly in the blogosphere.  Admittedly, this is part of my project: to allow the images and posts to form whatever story anyone choosing to view them makes.  However, as I'd like not to exclude anyone from the museums, galleries, archives, museology, and curatorship debate, I hope that this entry makes sense of what I've done so far, and of how at this early stage I see the blog developing. There is a folder of images that I'm working with at the moment to include in a post about curatorial space.  This will also refer to earlier posts to start a discussion about the various methods used to display the Bowes' collections from which I'll be able to speculate about how space affects visitor reception and interaction with the museum.  Of course this isn't a new debate, but it is one of the most important that the curator f...