Photography as a Research Method - 23rd and 24th April at Durham University.

Speakers:

Mr. Javed Sultan, Photojournalist and PhD candidate, De Montfort University

Javed Sultan is a professional photographer and PhD researcher in visual culture, photographic and media studies at the Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University, Leicester. His research examines the relationship between photography and democracy, focusing how photojournalism’s role in shaping political imagination, public discourse, and cultural identity in postcolonial India. His photographic work has been showcased at leading venues including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Sharjah Art Foundation, and Angkor Photo Festival. His photographs have appeared in major publications such as The Guardian, TIME Magazine, The Economist, Getty Images, and LensCulture. 

Dr Jonny Turnbull, Assistant Professor, Durham University 

Jonny Turnbull’s research on Nuclear Natures sees how and why the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone - site of the world's worst nuclear catastrophe of 1986 - comes to be understood simultaneously as a post-apocalyptic wasteland and a thriving nuclear nature reserve. Funded by the ESRC, it conceptualises "nuclear natures" by tracing how nature at Chornobyl is represented in public discourse and art, unpacking the scientific controversy that exists among radioecologists working on Chornobyl, and through ethnographic research with those living with and caring for free-roaming dogs in the Zone. Diverse and collaborative more-than-human methods - notably collaborative photography - are deployed to get a sense of how human and animal lives play out in the context of contamination. This work is currently being prepared for publication as a monograph, Radioactive Resurgence. With a Ukrainian film crew, Jonny has produced a film on the dogs living in the Zone called Собаки Що Вижили (The Dogs That Survived).

The film and exhibition were shown at The Cambridge Festival in 2023 and have been screened at Harvard and Princeton Universities. 

Laura El-Tantawy, Freelance Photographer and World Press Photo Mentor 

Laura's practice is rooted in her concern with the human condition. Investigating notions of home and belonging, she routinely approaches her work from a social and environmental sensibility drawing on her transatlantic background. Her visual explorations often intertwine moving images, sound and personal narratives, marked by the artist’s lyrical eye on reality.

She began her career as a newspaper photographer in the United States. She turned freelance in 2005, moving to Cairo and starting what became her seminal body of work In the Shadow of the Pyramids.  She has been awarded the prestigious W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund Award, Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize, Prix Virginia and PhMuseum awards. Her work has been widely exhibited across global galleries and festivals, with notable features in The New Yorker, Afar, Le Monde, Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Time, New York Times, Huck and Foam. 

Bayryam Bayryamali, Photographer and Archivist: 

Bayryam was based at the Magnum Photos office and worked on digital media and archive projects. After graduating in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication, Bayryam has continued his own photography practice, as well as working with Tate Collective Young Producers and volunteering for ‘BP or not BP?’. He has also facilitated various training and workshops in collaboration with ‘Sofia Platform’ in Bulgaria that explored the collapse of communism and its consequences. After starting the New Museum School he was inspired by the great scope of topics that Magnum photographers explored over the years and how Magnum can re-image and reinterpret its archive while bringing more voices from misrepresented backgrounds in the process of doing so. 

Moderator:

Nawal Ali, PhD candidate. Dept of Geography, Durham University.