Fast Forward: Women in Photography

Fast Forward marks the start of a thought provoking project that is pertinent to the current period where questions connected to women and employment are being raised on a daily basis. In the introduction to her seminal publication A History of Women Photographers, Naomi Rosenblum asks why, when photography was one of the easier arts professions for women to get involved in, do we have to investigate women photographers as a separate subject? She goes onto ask why have their achievements not been as well recognised as those of men in the field and why have inquiries into their activities not been as rigorous as inquiries into the activities of men? Fast Forward intends to re-iterate these questions renewing investigation into women’s work – to challenge women to question their own positions. The project will provoke new debate and ensure that we are in the history books of the future. Through Fast Forward we start a period of research and advocacy that will arrest the process of forgetting that so frequently erases women from the burgeoning histories of photography and shed light on new ways of thinking, showing, discussing and distributing our work. Fast Forward 2 is an international network hosting a series of research workshops funded by the Leverhulme Trust bringing together discussion on women on photography with seven partners across the globe. The research relates to women’s studies and to the discipline of photography and is significant at a time when despite numerous women being educated in photography there are still very few succeeding as photographers today. The network project includes six research workshops (hosted by six of the partners), archive visits, studio visits, visits to exhibitions and festivals and a conference in 2019 at Tate Modern. The partners in the project are: UCA; Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Dillon + Lee Gallery, NY, USA; SLADE, London; The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki; Lagos Photo, Nigeria; AJK Mass Media Research Centre, New Delhi