University of Brighton - Ground Floor
Fast Forward: Women in Photography is a research project, based at University for the Creative Arts (UCA), dedicated to promoting and engaging with women and non-binary individuals in photography worldwide. Fast Forward has played a significant role in highlighting the work of women photographers and challenging the established canons in the world of photography. The Fast Forward team is directed by photographer Anna Fox, Professor of Photography at UCA and project manager Maria Kapajeva with Corinne Whitehouse as research assistant.
Putting Ourselves in the Picture 1 and 2
In 2021 Anna Fox was awarded an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Engagement Fellowship by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of the UK Research Initiative. This Fellowship built on the Fast Forward: Women in Photography proposal to celebrate women and non-binary people in photography and has enabled the pioneering project Putting Ourselves in the Picture (POITP) to support a community of marginalised women and non-binary people to use photography to tell stories about their lives. In 2024 Fox won a further Impact Award from the AHRC to run POITP 2 and develop a series of engagements with industry for the project participants. Over five years, more than 50 women from migrant and refugee backgrounds and from a women’s refuge took part in Putting Ourselves in the Picture and Fast Forward is now applying for funding for part 3 of the project.
POITP 1 and POITP 2 were made in collaboration with six organisations recognised for their influential endeavours: Autograph ABP; Creative Response; Impressions Gallery, National Galleries of Scotland; Women for Refugee Women and Work Show Grow. Through a series of innovative workshops and mentorship activities organised by the partners POITP 1 and POITP 2 developed the skills, knowledge of photography and confidences of the participants. The resulting outputs, which include two publications, a series of short films, several podcasts and a documentary film, are set to educate us all by increasing awareness of marginalised women’s unheard life stories using photography as a tool of empowerment and as a story-telling practice. The participants were enabled to tell their own stories as opposed to having stories told about them.
The project participants: Alena, Alina, Ana, Anna, B, Bunny, Catty, Ceecee, DeeDee, Elham, Elise, Eunny, Grace, Hanna, Hannah, Iryna, Jannat, Jasmine, Josiane, Kitty, Larysa, Leonelle, Linda, Lovelin, Manar, Margo, Maria, Maryam, Maryna, Maureen, Memory, Miya, Natalia, Natalia, Nina, Nwanyi, Olena, Olga, Phim, Polina, Precious, Rella, Rhody, Raolat, Sylvie, Svitlana, Taraneh, Valentyna, Vicky, Victoria and Viktoriia, have all made work that opens our eyes, enthuses our ideas and crushes stereotypes. Putting Ourselves in the Picture confronts gender discrimination and the marginalisation of women in our societies.
POITP 1 and POITP 2 are now produced as a touring exhibition which has travelled worldwide
Partners and Mentors POITP 1 and 2
IMPRESSIONS GALLERY, AUTOGRAPH , WOMEN FOR REFUGEE WOMEN,
NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND, WORK SHOW GROW, CREATIVE RESPONSE
Publications: Putting Ourselves in the Picture 1 – Trolley Books
Putting Ourselves in the Picture 2 – Here Press
