Alayo Akinkugbe and Emma Lewis on An Alternative History of Photography

10 Feb 2023 6.30-8pm

Overview

Gain new insight into An Alternative History of Photography with curators Alayo Akinkugbe and Emma Lewis

Curators and art historians Alayo Akinkugbe and Emma Lewis reflect on the approaches and themes of our current exhibition An Alternative History of Photography. Together in this new talk they will create a critical dialogue with the show – does it achieve what it set out to do? In what ways does it interrogate and expand accepted and canonised histories in photography and visual culture? 

Biographies

Alayo Akinkugbe graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA in History of Art in 2021 and completed the MA in Curating The Art Museum at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2022. She is an art historian, writer and the founder of Instagram platform, @ABlackHistoryOfArt, which highlights Black artists, sitters, curators and thinkers from art history and the present day. Her aim is to continually champion emerging and forgotten Black artists from across the globe and across all periods of art history, in a bid to change the way art is taught and presented in the West, in favour of a more global and inclusive approach.

Emma Lewis is an art historian and curator specialising in photography and is Curator, Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK. Her current exhibition Sue WIlliamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember opens at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, on 5 March. From 2013-2022, Emma served as Assistant Curator, International Art at Tate Modern where she organized or co-organized numerous permanent collection displays and the temporary exhibitions Dora Maar (2019), Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life (2019), Modigliani (2017) and Wolfgang Tillmans (2017) and was also responsible for researching photography acquisitions for the permanent collection, with a special focus on women's histories and feminist practices. Emma regularly contributes to exhibition catalogues and artist monographs. Her most recent book, Photography, A Feminist History was published by Tate/Ilex and Chronicle Books in 2021.

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