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Photography in the Street and Studio

Staged, Estranged, Candid and Observed: Mass-Observation & Photography

Russell Roberts, Staged, Estranged, Candid and Observed: Mass-Observation & Photography  Russell Roberts looks at the ways that Mass-Observation engaged with photography during the 1930s and 40s, to understand social dynamics of the historical moment. The paper looks to specific applications of documentary realism in relation to urban space and more choreographed depictions of daily life from the street to the home to the place of work. The intellectual and cultural frameworks of Mass-Observation also provide a fascinating contrast with some of the more recent developments by artists in depicting public life, and Mass-Observation’s ambitions for 'an anthropology of ourselves' in relation to contemporary photography has a particular resonance for revisiting some of those founding ideas. Suggested Further Reading Exhibition -'Memory & The Archive: Photographs/Images/Documents', John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, 1995 Exhibition & catalogue - 'In Visible Light: Photography and Classification in Art, Science & The Everyday', Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (1997) Exhibition catalogue: 'A Matter of Fact: The Rhetoric of Documentary 'Style'' in FABULA, NMPFT (2002) Exhibition & book: 'A Gentle Madness - The Photographs of Tony Ray Jones', Arles, Rotterdam & National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (2004-5).