V&A Photography Centre – Render of Room 108 © David Kohn Architects
The Victoria and Albert Museum is set to open a new Photography Centre this autumn. The exhibition will include the world’s first photographic experiments, pictures by 20th Century greats Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, recent acquisitions by Linda McCartney gifted by Paul McCartney and his family, and newly commissioned works by Thomas Ruff.
Opening on 12 October, the first phase of the Photography Centre, designed by David Kohn Architects, will more than double the space dedicated to photography at the V&A. The inaugural display will trace a history of photography from the 19th Century to the present day through the theme of collectors and collecting.
V&A Photography Centre – Render of The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Gallery and Gallery 101 © David Kohn Architects
Drawn from the V&A’s significantly expanded holdings, following the transfer of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection, the display will show seminal prints and negatives by pioneers William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Frederick Scott Archer, alongside camera equipment, photographic publications and original documents to tell a broader story of international photography. It will also feature a digital wall to show the most cutting-edge photographic imagery.
V&A Photography Centre – Render of the ‘Dark Tent’ © David Kohn Architects
The new Photography Centre will also feature the ‘dark tent’, a multimedia projection and lecture space inspired by 19th Century photographers’ travelling darkrooms. Here, specially commissioned films revealing early photographic processes, including the daguerreotype, calotype and wet collodion process will be screened, along with a slideshow projection of rarely-seen magic lantern slides revealing the first attempts to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1921 and 1922.
To mark the opening, the V&A has commissioned internationally renowned German photographer Thomas Ruff to create a new body of work. Known for taking a critical and conceptual approach to photography, Ruff’s new series will be inspired by Linnaeus Tripe’s 1850s paper negatives of India and Burma from the V&A collection.
V&A Photography Centre – Render of Gallery 99 © David Kohn Architects
Situated in the V&A’s North East Quarter, the Photography Centre will comprise three original 19th century picture galleries and forms part of the V&A’s FuturePlan development programme to revitalise the museum’s public spaces through contemporary design and the restoration of original features. A second phase of the Photography Centre, planned to open in 2022, will expand it further to include a teaching and research space, a browsing library, and a studio and darkroom for photographers’ residencies.
Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A, said, “The transfer of the historic Royal Photographic Society collection provided the catalyst for this dramatic reimagining of photography at the V&A. Our collection – initiated by the V&A’s visionary first director Henry Cole – now seamlessly spans the entire history of photography, telling the story of the medium from the daguerreotype to the digital. Our new Photography Centre will provide a world-class facility to re-establish photography as one of our defining collections. In an era when everyone’s iPhone makes them a photographer, the V&A’s Photography Centre explores and explains the medium in a compelling new way.”
