Café Royal Books Archive Two
- Submitting institution
-
University of Central Lancashire
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 18297
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- UK
- Open access status
- -
- Month of production
- December
- Year of production
- 2015
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This output is double-weighted as it is extensively rigorous as the only comprehensive, live, and accessible archive of this type of work. The output is thoroughly supported by underpinning and ongoing research, as Atkinson sourced, collected, edited, presented, and helped preserve several hundred sets of British Documentary Photography made by over 200 photographers from around the world between 1960–2000. The archive box presents 100 individual volumes, which collectively work to shift our understanding of Britain during the latter half of the 20th Century. This forms the most comprehensive series and accessible printed archive of this material globally
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- "Café Royal Books Archive Two presents 100 photographic publications which show forgotten aspects of British life and culture during the latter half of the 20th century. The archive boxes are collected by internationally esteemed publicly-accessible institutions and educational settings such as Bodleian Library Oxford, George Eastman Museum NYC, The Hyman Collection, and the Universities of Newport, Leeds, Coventry.
This work has not previously been collected and made accessible. The genre has been historically ignored by galleries, especially in the UK, and before this work, a democratic and accessible platform from which photographers can present the work of this genre did not exist. The Café Royal Books Archive solves these problems by offering galleries a utilitarian ‘ready-made’ collection, and photographers a functional platform, challenging both the nature of gallery collections and curatorial practice.
The work included in the archive was previously rarely seen, and until published existed only as badly-stored negatives in the photographers’ own domestic archives. The delicate nature of negatives means that without Atkinson’s intervention, the work would almost certainly be lost or damaged. Atkinson locates photographers internationally and sources work for the archive from photographers of diverse backgrounds and contexts, and includes work from Serbia, Poland, America, France, Ireland, and Vietnam. Atkinson’s methodology also involves interviewing internationally-respected photographers, gallerists, curators, and collectors working in or with that genre of photography, to determine a framing for the work of Café Royal Books.
As a long-term interdisciplinary research project, Café Royal Books continually focusses on preserving, promoting, and making accessible, at-risk post-war British documentary photographic archives, through publishing. There are approximately 120,000 Café Royal Books in circulation globally, and Archive Two is the collection of the second 100 publications in a boxset. Café Royal Books Archive Two creates a new history of photography by gathering an entire genre, previously overlooked.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -