BJP #7837: Look and Learn

The values of collaboration and hard work are echoed by another teacher interviewed in this, our first issue dedicated to solely to education. Corinne Noordenbos, who has just officially retired from her 30-odd-year career as a photography lecturer, finishing up at the Royal Academy in The Hague, jokes that: “The intensive programme leaves little room for solving any of the unforeseen problems that might arise in their private lives during the course of studying.” Like ECAL, she instills the students with the mantra that they must work in partnership with other professionals.

Noordenbos has been a great champion of the photobook, building on a longstanding tradition of Dutch designers and photographers working together, and the close proximity between photography and graphics departments in many colleges. One of the second-year classes during a so-called ‘network week’, for example, revolves around the collaborative production of a magazine, for which students need to co-operate on many levels and make arrangements with organisations outside the college, such as printers and sponsors. And while you might not have heard of her, Noordenbos’ legacy is the success of her students. In Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s third and latest volume of The Photobook: A History, there are seven books made by former students, two of which were conceived of and produced as graduation projects; Pieter van den Boogert’s What We Wear, and Florian van Roekel’s How Terry Likes His Coffee.

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