PhD Studentship: The Home Darkroom and the Freedom of Photographic Production in Britain, 1950s-present

The College of Westminster and the Museum of the Dwelling (MotH) are delighted to announce a name for candidates for a completely funded collaborative doctoral studentship from October 2024, beneath the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP4) scheme. 

This PhD would be the first to analysis the connection between the house darkroom and LGBTQ+ individuals’s quest for freedom of expression and visible illustration in Britain from the Nineteen Fifties to the current. The mission will mix the archival research of LGBTQ+ photographic practices at house with two complementary gathering tasks: oral historical past interviews with LGBTQ+ darkroom customers and images of and produced in house darkrooms. By working with up to date practitioners, the coed may even rethink share such hidden tales with museum audiences.  

The mission will probably be supervised by Dr Sara Dominici (Senior Lecturer in Photographic Historical past and Visible Tradition), Professor Pippa Catterrall (Professor of Historical past and Coverage) and Dr Alison Hesse (Lecturer in Museum and Gallery Research) at Westminster; and, on the MotH, by Marina Maniadaki (Exhibitions and Mission Supervisor) and Louis Platman (Curator). The profitable applicant will probably be anticipated to spend time at each Westminster and on the MotH, in addition to changing into a part of the broader cohort of AHRC-funded college students. 

The core analysis goals are: 

To discover, for the primary time, the basic function performed by the home surroundings in fostering a fabric and imaginative house inside which photographic illustration of LGBTQ+ life in Britain might be created;

To analysis and accumulate: i) LGBTQ+ individuals’s recollections and lived experiences of the house darkroom in Britan from the Nineteen Fifties to the current, and ii) images of and that had been produced on this house, with a view to perceive how the house darkroom has formed LGBTQ+ histories and views;

To diversify the understanding of house, and, consequently, the expertise of the museum, by creating a brand new museological strategy to sharing LGBTQ+ tales of image-making at house.

Please embody in your software:

• Private Assertion (max. 1,500 phrases) explaining why you have an interest in researching this matter, together with what you’d deliver to the mission and the way you suppose you’d develop it to mirror your personal pursuits and experience;
• A pattern of writing. This might be a chunk of educational writing (e.g., MA dissertation) or a textual content written in the midst of any present or earlier skilled work;
• Your CV;
• Two references;
• Transcript of university-level grades and qualification certificates.

 NB: On finishing the appliance type:

• Please select the next programme space when making your software ‘MPhil/PhD Visible Tradition’ It’s essential to apply for this programme to be eligible for the AHRC CDP studentship. If you happen to apply for a programme in different areas your software is not going to be eligible.
• Below ‘Further Course Questions’>> ‘If you’re making use of for a Westminster Studentship’ please write ‘AHRC Museum of the DwellingCDP’.

All potential college students are strongly suggested to first make casual contact with the lead supervisor. Dr Sara Dominici ([email protected] ).

Apply for the Full-Time Route  

Apply for the Half-Time Route  

The deadline for purposes is 5pm (GMT) on Friday seventeenth Might 2024

Interviews will probably be held on Wednesday fifth June 2024 

Additional Particulars are Out there Right here