Die Agentur der Dokumente: Conversation with Alexandra Symons-Sutcliffe

In and Out: Terry Dennett’s Photographic and Pedagogical Form

Tuesday, May 28
7pm

The British photographer, historian, and curator Terry Dennett (1938–2018) believed in autonomous working-class organisation and education as the root and engine for political action. Working closely with his partner and collaborator Jo Spence (1934–1992), de-hierarchical pedagogy formed the centre of Dennett’s activities. These included after-school photography workshops for children, archival research into workers’ film and photography, and photographic practice that crossed the genres of documentary; from street photography to portraiture. In his most productive decades, the 1970s and 1980s, Dennett researched the intertwined histories of photography and labour organisation, metabolising archival material into politically efficacious structures.

In an open conversation with art historian, author and curator Alexandra Symons-Sutcliffe and the km Archive (Johanna Klingler and Jonas von Lenthe), the event will focus on the specific form that Dennett's pedagogy took and the institutions and technologies that enabled its development. The aim is to introduce Dennett’s important but under-recognized practice to a wider audience and together talk through the ways we can, and the ways we can’t, re-produce Dennett’s methodology today.

Image: MayDay Rooms London.

The event is part of the project Key Operators and supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

0
1
pageview counter pixel