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Portraits of the detained by Bettina Rheims

Photographs of women prisoners typically depict them in their cells, behind bars, their femininity stripped away. In contrast to this, French photographer Bettina Rheims has made a series of studio-like portraits of women in four jails across France, images that seek to restore and capture the feminine aspect of their identity. Titled Détenues [Detained], the series comprises 68 frontal portraits shot against white walls in Autumn 2014, and is currently on show in the chapel of Château de Vincennes – a former royal castle near Paris, that housed ‘women of ill repute’ in the 18th and 19th centuries. The exhibition is accompanied by a book, published by Gallimard.

21 March 2018

Çağdaş Erdoğan speaks out

“I was not surprised at all at being arrested,” Çağdaş Erdoğan tells BJP. “It’s enough to say that as we speak there are still 170 reporters in prison in Turkey.”

The 26-year-old only recently regained his freedom, after being arrested on 02 September 2017 for taking photographs in Yoğurtçu Park. Officially he was taken into custody for photographing the Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MİT) building, the home of Turkey’s answer to MI5, the National Intelligence Organisation. “But it is entirely fictitious,” he tells BJP, “because the place where I photographed is just a park and there isn’t any building, or even signs that show the presence of a restricted area where you cannot take pictures. Shortly after, the main reason of my arrest became the fact that I didn’t share any information about the contacts I used for some of my reportage as a journalist.

19 March 2018

Obituary: Pete James, Curator of Photography Collections at the Library of Birmingham, 1958-2018

Peter James was an instrumental figure in British photography, establishing an outstanding collection of photography at the Library of Birmingham over his 26-year career at the institution, and researching and curating exhibitions at the V&A, National Portrait Gallery, Somerset House, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Ikon Galley, the Library of Birmingham, and many more. He was also a modest and affable man, universally known as Pete and as at home over a curry as in a lecture hall delivering an academic paper. As Hilary Roberts, research curator at the Imperial War Museum, put it in a tribute on James’ Facebook page: “Pete has been a wonderful friend and exceptional colleague for more years than I can remember. His contribution to the world of photography cannot be overstated. It was a privilege to work with him and I will miss him more than I can say.”

14 March 2018

A Lifetime of Wandering – Arlene Gottfried solo show in NYC

“I never had trouble walking up to people and asking them to take their picture,” photographer Arlene Gottfried (1950-2017) told The Guardian in 2014. Largely unknown to the public for the majority of her career, it was her black-and-white photographs of New York in the 1970s-80s that first sparked an interest in her work. Looking at them, it’s clear that Gottfried had a way with people as well as with images. “Arlene had a way of looking at the world with curiosity and love that was distinctly her own,” says Daniel Cooney, who runs a gallery of the same name currently showing Gottfried’s work.

12 March 2018

Daniel Shea wins the Foam Paul Huf Award 2018

“I’m a bit at a loss at the moment; to say that I’m honoured feels like an understatement,” says photographer Daniel Shea, who has won the 12th Foam Paul Huf Award. “I’ve been following this award and Foam for a long time, and I feel incredibly honored, grateful, lucky, and humbled by this opportunity.” Shea has won the prize with his series 43-35 10th Street, described as a reflection on late capitalism and its effects on New York City. He wins €20,000 and a solo show at the Foam Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam, which will take place in Autumn this year.

8 March 2018

Philip Jones Griffiths on show at TJ Boulting

“Philip always hated being called a ‘war photographer,’” says Hannah Watson, director of TJ Boulting Gallery, of Philip Jones Griffiths. “He wasn’t interested in the ‘action’ that you often associated with war photography.” Instead, Watson draws attention to the careful consideration and intelligence behind each of the Magnum photographer’s shots. “In a single image he could give insight and an in-depth analysis to a complex situation,” she says.

7 March 2018

Collaboration on show in Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto

Photography is often considered a solitary pursuit, but the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC) in Toronto, Canada hopes to overturn this conception with a research project led by artists, scholars, and curators such as Ariella Azoulay, Wendy Ewald, Susan Meiselas, Leigh Raiford, and Laura Wexler. Now an exhibition at RIC called Collaboration: A Potential History of Photography is putting their work on view. Featuring approximately 90 photographic projects the work on show demonstrates some of the many ways photographers have collaborated with their subjects and other participants. It includes Wendy Ewald’s Reciprocating in Arabic installation, which combines image and text in an attempt to show the experience of walking through the Arabic language, and WEB Du Bois’ The Potential of the Archive I, a look into the history and present challenges of black America, among many other projects.

6 March 2018