Finding Emerson

About

A new exhibition of photography at the University of East Anglia, Finding Emerson sees contemporary photographs of Great Yarmouth displayed alongside images of East Anglia by pioneering Victorian photographer Peter Henry Emerson at the Enterprise Centre on campus. The images in Finding Emerson were taken by residents of Great Yarmouth who took to the streets of the town as part of the 2021 ‘Finding Emerson Photo Festival’ to snap shots of their view of where they live. The wide range of pictures show a couple enjoying an ice cream on a tandem mobility scooter, a driver sitting in a pink hatchback and a woman posing with her dogs on South Quay. They highlight local people and scenes which show the familiar, the funny and the interesting from behind a camera lens.

These modern images are displayed alongside photographs by Peter Henry Emerson, a Victorian photographer, artist, naturalist, physician and writer who was drawn to rural subjects and was fascinated by East Anglia's traditional ways of life and who travelled extensively across the region. He was born in Cuba in 1856 and moved to England as a teenager capturing images around Great Yarmouth and the Norfolk Broads between 1885 and 1895. Emerson’s firm belief that photography should be accepted as an independent art form put him at odds with his contemporaries and on a collision course with the established art world. 

On display at the Enterprise Centre are a selection of works from two of Emerson’s photographic portfolios, Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads, and Wild Life on a Tidal Water. They highlight his dedication to depicting life as it was in the 19th century by embedding himself in the landscape of East Anglia and capturing what he encountered. There are images of marsh farms, the harvesting of reed beds, smelters, punt gunners, eel catchers and their house boats, cottages, wherries and water mills.  

The exhibition has been created by Original Projects, an artist-led organisation based in Great Yarmouth, and Utter Nonsense, a body inspiring more people to explore the language of photography, with the support of CreativeUEA, a new interdisciplinary research theme at the University. Many of the photographs were originally displayed at the ‘Finding Emerson Photo Festival’, a biennial event committed to bringing a new understanding to photography and animating the extraordinary legacy of one of Britain's greatest photographers, Peter Henry Emerson.