Photographing Everyday Life is an exhibition that highlights some of the photographs taken by research participants in mid-to-later life. Participants created a weekly visual diary exploring the rhythms, patterns and meanings that underlie our habitual and routinized daily lives. The exhibition presents the photographs in a creative and novel format. The photographic exhibition draws on a research database of visual diaries from the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) funded project: Photographing Everyday Life: Ageing, Lived Experiences, Time and Space. It represents ordinary and everyday images of daily life that question and challenge the predominant stereotypical and alternative positive and negative images of ageing.
The aim of the project Photographing Everyday Life: Ageing, Lived Experiences, Time and Space was to explore the significance of the ordinary and day‑to‑day and focus on the everyday meanings, lived experiences, practical activities and social contexts in which people in mid‑to‑later life live their daily lives.
The research involved a diverse sample of 62 women and men aged 50 years and over living in the UK who took photographs of their different daily routines to create a weekly visual diary. This diary was then explored through in-depth photo-elicitation interviews.
Researchers:
Dr.Wendy Martin, Brunel University
Dr Katy Pilcher (Aston University), UK.
Original Project Artist: Laura O’Malley
Curator: George Mogg
ACT Partner:
Brunel University
Funding:
ACT – SSHRC
Brunel University London
ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council, UK)
the ESRC Festival of Social Science
London Borough of Hillingdon
The Uxbridge Library
The British Library
Project updates
September 2015 – May 2017. Discovery Trail 18 (Mary Seacole Building, 1st Floor Mezzanine) The photographic exhibition is part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations at Brunel University London. http://fifty.brunel.ac.uk/discovery-trail/18-photographing-everyday-life/
February 2015. ESRC Festival of Social Science, Uxbridge Library, London Borough of Hillingdon. As part of the national ESRC Festival of Social Science the research was presented at Uxbridge Library, London Borough of Hillingdon as a free public exhibition. The photographic exhibition was opened by the Mayor of Hillingdon, Cllr Catherine Dann, and also involved an opening reception, research talks, digital drop in clinics led by Brunel University London students and coffee mornings. See: http://sites.brunel.ac.uk/photographingdailylives/aphotographicexhibition
May 2014. British Library, London. Dr Wendy Martin presented alongside the photographic exhibition at the public engagement event: “Portraying Ageing: Cultural Assumptions and Practical Implications”, held at the British Library Conference Centre on Monday 28 April 2014.
See: http://socialwelfare.bl.uk/resources-tools/portraying14.aspx
June 2013. Interactive Photographic Exhibition, Michael Sterling Atrium, Brunel University London. Towards the end of the ESRC funded project Photographing Everyday Life: Ageing, Lived Experiences, Time and Space we created and disseminated our key findings via an interactive photographic exhibition at Michael Sterling Atrium, Brunel University London. The photographic exhibition was a collaboration with Brunel Arts Centre, an independent Artist and involved the active engagement of our participants. Within the exhibition we created a series of installations, mosaics, photographic images and digitised displays with the aim to portray our research findings in an interactive, creative and engaging way. We also collected ideas, images, insights and feedback from the audiences who interacted with the exhibition. The exhibition was well received with 85 attendees at the research talks and about 85 more viewing the exhibition only. The feedback was positive with participants enjoying seeing their own photographs, an opportunity to re-think the habitual and everyday and an exploration of the use of photography. The exhibition provided a way to disseminate social science data via the arts and humanities and enhance public engagement.
See: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bruneluniversity/sets/72157634643346505/
Photographing Everyday Life, Photographic Exhibition, Brunel University London
