Peckham 24 Public Programme

Artists Melinda Gibson, Steffi Klenz and Duncan Wooldridge are the new curators for the public programme for Peckham 24. Starting from a reflection upon what an artist’s practice depends upon, this year’s programme will focus upon two forces: generosity and hospitality. The programme will bring together critical voices from both within and outside of photography, to discuss how the image connects to and affects the world at large, and how to support, critically and proactively, long-lasting artistic practice and discourse.

Uniquely, the programme will invite participants to engage in not only talks and discussions, but in personal conversations built around reading seminars, shared lunches, and culminating in a dinner supporting emerging practices. As part of this event, we have extended an invitation to a small number of Universities to put forward alumnus from the past 10 years who have not received the opportunities their work deserves.

The programme will draw upon the rich variety of debates within Peckham, London more widely, and across contemporary art and photographic practices internationally. Its format proposes a relaxed, informal and convivial environment, which fosters conversation, non-hierarchical debate and opportunities to build new allegiances and associations.

12:30 - 14:00 - Shared Lunch: Bread, Cheese & Wine (all ticket holders for any event is invited to this). 

13:00 - 14:00 - Show Talks: Taisuke Koyama in conversation with Duncan Wooldridge. Artist Taisuke Koyama (lives and works Tokyo, Japan) will discuss his exhibition 'Sensor Code' with artist and writer Duncan Wooldridge. Koyama's exhibition takes the generative possibilities of the digital image as its starting point. Koyama is notable for being amongst an emerging group of Japanese photographic artists whose work has creatively explored the capacities of digital technology, without being filtered through analogue or traditional languages.

14:00 - 15:00 - Debate: Hospitality and Generosity - Penelope Umbrico (Artist, New York), Robin Tarbet (Swap Editions & Creekside Studios), Dusan Smodej (Fotopub Festival, Slovenia), Yuxin Jiang and Rakesh Mahindra (and other guests to be confirmed). The unsung importance of generosity and forms of non-commercial exchange are prone to go missing at the times of large festivals and commercial fairs. Whilst they may be underrepresented, the generosity of artists, curators, publishers and all figures involved in the arts often plays a central role in establishing a sustainable means of living and working as artists. Set into contrast to the individual-centred economic agent, such individuals demonstrate the significance of art as something that critically negotiates money and established forms of value production. Join a range of artists and cultural producers to discuss various strategies and tactics that artists need to navigate in order to develop their work in the present. 

15:00 - 16:00 - Artists in Conversation: New Ways Of Working. Bruno V. Roels, Dafna Talmor, Hannah Hughes, Jonny Briggs and Yamini Nagar in conversation with Melinda Gibson. What are the emergent questions for photographic artists in the present? What new approaches and enquiries are being formed? Join Melinda Gibson as she discusses with a group of significant emerging contemporary practitioners to consider how photography is changing through explorations of its processes, materialities, relationships to contingency, and new notions of content and encounter. 

16:00 - 17:00 - The Reading Room: From the Post-Industrial to the Post-Human. ‘Photography and Extinction’ from Joanna Zylinska’s ‘Nonhuman Photography’ (MIT Press). Led by Duncan Wooldridge. This relaxed reading seminar will discuss Chapter 4 of Joanna Zylinska's new book 'Nonhuman' Photography', entitled 'Photography and Extinction' (see extract from author's introduction below). Discussing photography's agency and its relationship to its human operator, as well as its regular use as the depiction of life, death and disaster. A scan of the book chapter will be sent to attendees of the talk who register before Friday 18th May - the book is also widely available online and in good bookstores. 

17:00 - 18:00 - Debate: Peckham Photographies - Chaired by Joy Gregory, with Marcia Michael and Oliver Griffin. Additional contributors TBC. In the past five to ten years, Peckham has become something of a hub for artists and designers, with many residents moving into the area from the overpriced and changed East End. This in turn has produced its own displacements: Peckham's current status hovers between extreme gentrification and a community which still (for the moment at least) retains diversity and a complex, rather than flattened history. A recent article in the New York Times identified Peckham as a key destination for international art tourism and collectors of new art, causing a mixture of bemused pride and concern. Internationally recognised artists from the local area discuss their practices and the role Peckham plays in their approaches in this talk

18:00 - 19:00 - Inadvertent Images: A History of Photographic Apparitions - Dr. Peter Geimer Lecture and Book Launch.  Esteemed German Photography Historian Dr. Peter Geimer (Professor of Art History, Freie Universitat Berlin) gives a lecture from his new book 'Inadvertent Images: A History of Photographic Apparitions' (University of Chicago Press). With responses from artist Bernd Behr. 

19:00 - 20:00 - Talk led by Jean Wainwright and Duncan Wooldridge with Thomas Kujipers, Lisa Barnard, Felicity Hammond and Ben McDonnell. Artists Thomas Kuijpers, Lisa Barnard, Felicity Hammond and Ben McDonnell will discuss contemporary approaches to photography through the filter of politics and technology. How can the abstractions of capital be made visible through photography, and how does photography extend, affect or undo notions of fear and terror?  The panel discussion will be led by Jean Wainwright with contributions from Duncan Wooldridge. 

Tickets to the talks are £2 and can be bought via Ticketsource: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/peckham-24-talks