Diversifying Art – Peter Symonds College

Photography as an art medium is a bit of a funny beast. Unlike painting, it isn’t solely a reflection of the artist’s inner world, because for a photograph to exist, it must be of something. Photographs straddle the line between objective truth (under these circumstances, at this time, from this angle, it looked like this) and subjective interpretation. Magritte taught us that a painting of a pipe isn’t really a pipe, but in Photography, there is a pipe… the photographer saw it, documented it, and is presenting evidence of its existence to us, the audience. What we choose to understand about that pipe from the photograph… well, that is down to us as individuals.

This interplay between subject and perspective—truth and interpretation—made me reflect on the stories we present in education. When I began reviewing the photography curriculum at Peter Symonds, I realised that much of the historical canon - and my understanding - of photography is male and Eurocentric. I wanted to expand my knowledge of the medium I loved, but also to be able to present students with more options. Photography doesn’t just document our world, it shapes it. It offers glimpses into lives we haven’t lived and perspectives we may never have considered.

I began building a genre-organised database of photographers to give students a starting point for discovering diverse work. Each genre is sorted alphabetically by surname and is presented as a Google Site. At last count, the database contained 542 artists, with the majority (149) being in the Portraiture section. For each genre, I wanted to find artists from a broad diversity of expressions, and from all over the world. From Tina Modotti’s still lifes infused with Mexican revolutionary symbolism to Rosie Barne’s portraits of women with autism, the database reflects a wide spectrum of human stories. The project has been mammoth in scale and ongoing, but it's the most valuable CPD I’ve undertaken for deepening my grasp of photography and given me many more examples to share with my students. The proof is in the pudding - students’ projects have become more nuanced and personal. One student produced a project about her experiences as a British-born Filipino called Agawid Tayon (Let’s Go Home) - which was an exploration of British and Filipino food culture, shot half in the UK and half in the Philippines. Other students have explored ideas of Female identity and consumerism, experiences of chronic illness and their connection to home, all influenced by photographers from a broad background, both globally and experientially.

When the database was first launched, I heard a gasp from across the room, followed by an excited whisper as one of my black female students turned to her friend and said, “There are black women in here! And not just one or two, but a lot!”. A moment that made me realise it was worth the effort, but ultimately really rather sad! At the age of 17, feeling excited to see yourself represented because it is such a rare occurrence, to see art or culture that reflects your lived experience, to see perspectives that echo your own. The database has been just as much about affirming my students’ right to belong in the photographic canon themselves as it has been about exposing them to new ideas."