Talks & Seminars
Susan Derges and Mark Haworth-Booth in Conversation
Poet and artist Mark Haworth-Booth and photographer Susan Derges in conversation, followed by Q&A.
In the early 1990s Susan Derges moved to Dartmoor and began an ongoing exploration of the cycles of life unfolding around her studio through focusing on local streams, rivers and their outlets on the shorelines and intertidal zones that shape so much of this part of Southwest Devon. More recently she has been following cycles of growth and decay in plants and trees.
Themes of change, impermanence and metamorphosis in the natural world inform the sequencing and incorporation of process in her prints. They mostly adhere to a one-to-one scale with the subject and take a viewpoint that is as close as possible to a state of immersion in the material qualities of the world rather than observing it from the perspectival viewpoint more normally associated with lens-based photography.
Mark Haworth-Booth studied English Literature at Cambridge University and Art History at Edinburgh University. He served as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) from 1970-2004 and, as senior curator of photographs, helped to build up its great collection of photography. He is now an Honorary Research Fellow at the V&A and a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art. He has curated many exhibitions and acted as a consultant on the BBC’s award-winning television series The Genius of Photography (2007 and aired occasionally thereafter). He curated, with Jeu de Paume, Paris and the National Portrait Gallery in London, a centenary retrospective of the pioneering photographer Camille Silvy (1834-1910), shown at the National Portrait Gallery in 2010. Mark researched the Silvy exhibition catalogue at the J. Paul Getty Museum as a Museum Scholar in 2008. Published in UK, French, and US editions, this was the third of Mark’s books to be highly commended in photographic book awards.
Mark served as the first Visiting Professor of Photography at the University of the Arts London, 2002-09. In 2005 he was appointed OBE for services to museums. He became an Honorary Doctor of Arts of the University of the Arts London in 2012. He completed a creative writing MA (with Distinction) at Exeter University in 2015.
Mark and his wife Rosie moved to North Devon in autumn 2009 to write and garden. He retired from most photo history activity at the end of 2010. However, he contributed a V&A Blog on the late Chris Killip on 30 October 2020. He edited A Photographic Friendship on Chris Chapman and James Ravilious, published by Skerryvore in October 2022.
Themes of change, impermanence and metamorphosis in the natural world inform the sequencing and incorporation of process in her prints. They mostly adhere to a one-to-one scale with the subject and take a viewpoint that is as close as possible to a state of immersion in the material qualities of the world rather than observing it from the perspectival viewpoint more normally associated with lens-based photography.
Mark Haworth-Booth studied English Literature at Cambridge University and Art History at Edinburgh University. He served as a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) from 1970-2004 and, as senior curator of photographs, helped to build up its great collection of photography. He is now an Honorary Research Fellow at the V&A and a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art. He has curated many exhibitions and acted as a consultant on the BBC’s award-winning television series The Genius of Photography (2007 and aired occasionally thereafter). He curated, with Jeu de Paume, Paris and the National Portrait Gallery in London, a centenary retrospective of the pioneering photographer Camille Silvy (1834-1910), shown at the National Portrait Gallery in 2010. Mark researched the Silvy exhibition catalogue at the J. Paul Getty Museum as a Museum Scholar in 2008. Published in UK, French, and US editions, this was the third of Mark’s books to be highly commended in photographic book awards.
Mark served as the first Visiting Professor of Photography at the University of the Arts London, 2002-09. In 2005 he was appointed OBE for services to museums. He became an Honorary Doctor of Arts of the University of the Arts London in 2012. He completed a creative writing MA (with Distinction) at Exeter University in 2015.
Mark and his wife Rosie moved to North Devon in autumn 2009 to write and garden. He retired from most photo history activity at the end of 2010. However, he contributed a V&A Blog on the late Chris Killip on 30 October 2020. He edited A Photographic Friendship on Chris Chapman and James Ravilious, published by Skerryvore in October 2022.
