The University of Westminster and the Museum of the Home are pleased to announce the availability of a fully funded collaborative doctoral studentship from October 2024 under the AHRC’s Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) scheme.
About the studentship
This PhD will be the first to research the relationship between the home darkroom and LGBTQ+ people’s quest for freedom of expression and visual representation in Britain from the 1950s to the present. The project will combine the archival study of LGBTQ+ photographic practices at home with two complementary collecting projects: oral history interviews with LGBTQ+ darkroom users and photographs of and produced in home darkrooms. By working with contemporary practitioners, the student will also rethink how to share such hidden stories with museum audiences.
This project will be jointly supervised:
At the University of Westminster by Dr Sara Dominici (Senior Lecturer in Photographic History and Visual Culture), Professor Pippa Catterrall (Professor of History and Policy), and Dr Alison Hesse (Lecturer in Museum and Gallery Studies)
At the Museum of the Home by Marina Maniadaki (Exhibitions and Project Manager) and Louis Platman (Curator)
The project will also feed into the Centre for Studies of Home (CSH), an interdisciplinary research hub between Queen Mary University of London and the Museum of the Home, and the student will become part of the CSH cohort. The student will have access to research in progress days and conferences organised by the CSH, and their project will receive promotion and support from the CSH.
The student will be expected to spend time at both the University of Westminster and the Museum of the Home, as well as becoming part of the wider cohort of CDP funded students across the UK. The student will have access to the same levels of training, support, and expertise as members of staff at the Museum of the Home, thus developing core museum skills alongside academic capabilities.
Project overview
This practice-based PhD adopts an interdisciplinary approach to researching, collecting, and engaging museum audiences in the untold story of the relationship between the home darkroom and LGBTQ+ people’s quest for freedom of expression and visual representation in Britain from the 1950s to the present. First, the project will investigate how the home darkroom has shaped LGBTQ+ people’s experiences of their domestic environment and, relatedly, of their own photographic practice, and influenced the history of LGBTQ+ visual culture more widely. Second, in consultation with contemporary practitioners it will conduct and collect oral history interviews, and research and collect photographs of and produced in home darkrooms, to rethink museological approaches to interpreting such largely hidden stories of making and identity.
Despite the expansion of commercial processing labs from the 1950s, rigging up a darkroom in the home thrived as a hobby because it offered creative control over and a cheaper way of producing photographs. Following the rise of digital photography and the almost entire closure of commercial labs from the 2000s, the home darkroom has supported a resurgence of interest in film photography. For LGBTQ+ people, however, developing and printing at home also allowed visual records to be created privately. This has historically been crucial because of the risk of embarrassment (or worse) if certain images were sent to commercial processors, which persisted even after partial decriminalisation in 1967. And yet, while the role played by Polaroids (which similarly removed the need for commercial labs) in LGBTQ+ people’s lives is well known, their experiences of the home darkroom is largely unexplored.
Uniting the emerging field of darkroom research with studies of the home, this PhD will unearth and collect stories of personal and collective identity through the close analysis of a domestic, creative practice. Viewing the home darkroom as a vehicle for human agency and creativity in the LGTBQ+ fight for acceptance and representation, the home can be seen as shaped by the politics of inclusion, exclusion, and inequalities. The darkroom is not a neutral container for photographic production, rather, it is a generative space that has an important influence on those who operate within it. The as-yet-unexplored intersections of home and darkroom will thus provide new insights on how LGBTQ+ people explored and expressed their world through image-making, and, in the process, created their own ideas of home and photographic practice.
The core research aims are:
To explore, for the first time, the fundamental role played by the domestic environment in fostering a material and imaginative space within which photographic representation of LGBTQ+ life in Britain could be created.
To research and collect: i) LGBTQ+ people’s memories and lived experiences of the home darkroom in Britan from the 1950s to the present, and ii) photographs of and that were produced in this space, in order to understand how the home darkroom has shaped LGBTQ+ histories and perspectives.
To diversify the understanding of home, and, consequently, the experience of the museum, by developing a new museological approach to sharing LGBTQ+ stories of image-making at home.
While the student who undertakes the work will be encouraged to choose their own focus, they will be expected to appraise the relationship between home darkroom practices and LGBTQ+ lives in relation to these three complementary aims. The research questions will be developed in consultation with the student, but may include the following:
How has the home darkroom shaped LGBTQ+ people’s experiences and understandings of their domestic environment?
What creative, social, and political agency has developing and printing photographs in the home afforded or constrained?
How can such hidden histories of making in the home be collected, evaluated, and brought to wider audiences?
Methods and sources
This PhD will combine research into photographic literature with oral histories and museum collecting strategies, and consult with contemporary practitioners. Specifically:
The study of the textual and visual materials, including grey literature (eg Hall-Carpenter Archives at the LSE Library, LGBTQ+ Archives at Bishopsgate Institute), that have supported photographers in practicing photography at home
The PhD candidate will consult the British Library’s LGBTQ+ Oral History archives and the Museum of the Home Documenting Homes collection to learn about how LGBTQ+ experiences have changed over time, and then conduct oral history interviews with LGBTQ+ people who have used/are currently using the darkroom in their home in Britain
Using focus groups, the PhD will bring into dialogue contemporary home darkroom users with historical legacies of processing photographs at home to examine the role and significance that the home darkroom plays in people’s everyday lives today
Training and arrangements
The successful applicant will have access to the University of Westminster’s comprehensive Doctoral Researcher Development Programme (DRDP), which consists of tailor-made workshops, specialist skills sessions and personal development planning activities, as well as to specific training and events through the School of Humanities.
The student will have desk space at the Museum of the Home during the entire duration of their PhD. This will bring the added benefit of fully embedding the student into the working environment of the museum and gain an invaluable professional insight into areas of work such as:
Curatorial practice: exhibition development and design, museum text writing, community engagement, research skills for museum displays, object acquisition
Collections care: object handling training, preventative conservation, object packing and storage, documentation and cataloguing
Developing and delivering learning programmes
This will enable the student to take advantage of opportunities for additional impact that we expect will arise during the project, eg recreating period darkrooms at the Museum of the Home, running workshops, collaboration with local community organisations, supporting darkroom users to present their practice to a non-expert audience. This project’s strong focus on professional practice and their involvement at the Museum of the Home will significantly enhance the student’s future employability by providing skills and training that are integral to early museum careers as well as to the heritage, academia and the arts sectors more generally. In addition, the specific outputs of this research will allow them to gain invaluable hands-on experiences of public engagement and project management that will help both their practice-based PhD research and their longer-term career developments.
The successful applicant will also receive training in conducting oral history interviews and in operating a darkroom.
Details of the award
CDP doctoral training grants fund full-time studentships for four years or part-time equivalent up to a maximum of eight years.
The award pays tuition fees up to the value of the full-time home UKRI rate for PhD degrees. Research Councils UK Indicative Fee Level for 2023–2024 is £4,786. The award pays full maintenance for all students both home and international students. The UKRI National Minimum Doctoral Stipend for 2024–25 is £19,237, plus a CDP maintenance payment of £600/year, plus London Weighting of £2000/year.
The student is eligible to receive an additional travel and related expenses grant during the course of the project courtesy of the Museum of the Home worth up to £1,000 per year for four years. There are internal funds at the University of Westminster available specifically to the PhD community, including the GER Scholarship Fund and the Geoffrey Petts Memorial Fund.
The successful candidate will be eligible to participate in events organised for all Collaborative Doctoral Partnership students who are registered with different universities and studying with cultural and heritage organisations across the UK.
International students are eligible to apply for studentships but will be expected to pay the difference between the home and international fee rate themselves (as the studentship will only cover fees at the home rate, plus the stipend).
Eligibility
the studentship can be studied either full or part-time
this studentship is open to both Home and international applicants (though see above for details on fees)
To be classed as a home student, candidates must meet the following criteria:
be a UK National (meeting residency requirements), or
have settled status, or
have pre-settled status (meeting residency requirements), or
have indefinite leave to remain or enter
Further guidance can be found in the UKRI guidance document.
International students are eligible to receive the full award for maintenance as are home students. They will need to pay themselves the difference between what the AHRC provide to the University for tuition and the charge made by the University for tuition fees for international students studying for a doctoral degree in Humanities. The international fee for 2024–25 is £15,450.
We want to encourage the widest range of potential students to study for a CDP studentship and are committed to welcoming students from different backgrounds to apply. We particularly welcome applications from Black, Asian, Minority, Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds as they are currently underrepresented at this level in this area.
Applicants should ideally have, or expect to receive, a relevant Master's-level qualification by the time of taking up the appointment, or be able to demonstrate equivalent experience in a professional setting. Suitable fields are: queer history and culture, gender and sexuality studies; home studies; photography; visual culture; museum, heritage and cultural studies; social history. While not essential, some prior experience of museum-based work would be welcome.
The studentship offers a distinctive opportunity to undertake a collaborative doctorate with a university and a museum. As such, students should demonstrate their interests and aptitude for exploiting the unique possibilities of a studentship that will allow them to develop career-enhancing skills in heritage and public engagement, and to contribute to the cultural and intellectual life of both institutions.
As a collaborative award, students will be expected to spend time at both the University and the Museum of the Home.
Please note:
All applicants must meet UKRI terms and conditions for funding
As part of the application process, applicant anonymised EDI data will be shared with the AHRC for monitoring purposes. The applications themselves will be shared with the partner institutions for shortlisting, interviewing and selection purposes
How to apply
Please include in your application:
Personal statement (maximum 1,500 words) explaining why you are interested in researching this topic, including what you would bring to the project and how you think you would develop it to reflect your own interests and expertise
A sample of writing. This could be a piece of academic writing (eg MA dissertation) or a text written in the course of any current or previous professional work
Your CV
Two references
Transcript of university-level grades and qualification certificates
Please note, on completing the application form:
Please choose the following programme area when making your application ‘MPhil/PhD Visual Culture’. You must apply for this programme to be eligible for the AHRC CDP studentship. If you apply for a programme in other areas your application will not be eligible
Under ‘Additional Course Questions’>> ‘If you are applying for a Westminster Studentship’ please write ‘AHRC Museum of the Home CDP’
All prospective students are strongly advised to first make informal contact with the lead supervisor:
Dr Sara Dominici
E: [email protected]
Deadline for applications: 5pm (BST) on Friday 17 May 2024
Enrolment and induction: w/c Monday 16 September 2024
Start date: 1 October 2024
Interviews will be held online on Wednesday 5 June 2024
Further information
For informal enquiries about the project, please contact the lead supervisor:
Dr Sara Dominici
E: [email protected]
For information or queries about the Westminster application process, please contact:
Dr Sylvia Shaw
E: [email protected]