Aperture presents: The London Scene with Marta Weiss; Shoair Mavlian; Mark Sealy. Moderated by David Campany
New spaces and new leadership in major photo institutions; expanded offerings from venerable museums — photography in London is making strides to extend the conversation around the medium in new and exciting ways. Join Marta Weiss (V&A), Shoair Mavlian (Photographers’ Gallery), and Mark Sealy (AUTOGRAPH) for a conversation around the possibilities — and obstacles — facing the city’s photo community. Moderated by David Campany.
Ticket Price: £9.50
Speakers
Shoair Mavlian is Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, London and was named Apollo Magazine’s 40 under 40 Europe – Thinkers. She was previously Director of Photoworks where she led the strategic vision and artistic direction of the organisation including exhibitions, biennial festival, commissions, learning and engagement, publishing and digital content. Recent Photoworks projects include ‘Johny Pitts: Home is Not a Place’ (2022), ‘Diana Tamane: Half Love’ (2022), ‘Jerwood/Photoworks Awards: Silvia Rosi and Theo Simpson’ (2020), ‘Photoworks Festival: Propositions for Alternative Narratives’ (2020), ‘Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Zone Grise/The Land In between’ (MEP, Paris 2019).
Dr Marta Weiss is Senior Curator of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and Lead Curator of the expanded V&A Photography Centre, the UK’s largest suite of galleries for a permanent photography collection, opening in May 2023. She joined the V&A in 2007 after two years as a curatorial and research fellow in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She holds
degrees in history of art from Harvard (BA) and Princeton (MA, PhD). An expert in 19th-century British photography, she has curated 16 exhibitions and displays spanning the history of photography, including Julia Margaret Cameron (2015), which toured to Moscow, Ghent, Madrid, Tokyo and Sydney; The Camera Exposed (2016); Staying Power: Photographs of Black British Experience 1950s-1990s (2015); and Light from the Middle East: New Photography (2012). Her books include Julia Margaret Cameron: Photographs to electrify you with delight and startle the world (2015); Making It Up: Photographic Fictions (2018); Autofocus: The Car in Photography (2019) and, most recently, Julia Margaret Cameron: Arresting Beauty (with Lisa Springer, 2023).
Dr Mark Sealy OBE, Executive Director of Autograph (1991 -) and Professor, Photography, Rights and Representation at University Arts London – London College of Communication.
Sealy is interested in the relationship between art, photography and social change, identity politics, race, and human rights. He gained his PhD from Durham University England. He has written for many of the world’s leading photographic journals, produced numerous artist publications, curated exhibitions, and commissioned photographers and filmmakers worldwide. In addition, he is an advisor (management + committees) to several leading cultural institutions, including Tate, Paul Mellon Centre for the Studies in British Art, and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, World Press Photo, and the International Centre of Photography in New York USA.
Sealy’s critical writings on photography have been published by Lawrence and Wishart. Photography: Race, Rights and Representation, published 2022 and Decolonising the Camera: Photography in Racial Time, published 2019.
David Campany is a curator, writer, editor, and educator. He teaches at the University of Westminster London, and is Curator at Large for the International Center of Photography, New York. David has worked worldwide with institutions including Tate, Whitechapel Gallery London, Centre Pompidou, Le Bal Paris, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, The Photographer’s Gallery London, ParisPhoto, PhotoLondon, The National Portrait Gallery London, Aperture, Steidl, MIT Press, Thames & Hudson, MACK and Frieze. Recent curatorial projects include William Klein: Yes. Photographs, Paintings, Films 1948-2013 (2022), ACTUAL SIZE! Photography at Life Scale (2022); A Trillion Sunsets: A Century of Image Overload (2022); Gillian Laub: Family Matters (2021); Alex Majoli: SCENE (2019); The Still Point of the Turning World: Between Film and Photography (2017). In 2020, David curated the three-city Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie 2020 – The Lives and Loves of Images (Mannheim/Ludwigshafen/Heidelberg, Germany).