What is feminist documentary photography practice and how does it form part of a multi-disciplinary approach to research? Contemporary Challenges in Practice-Based Arts Research

This research paper gives a brief overview of a practice-based PhD research project being conducted within the Ulster University Research Institute for Art and Design. I report on a historical case study I have been conducting on the London-based group, Format, the world’s first women-only photography agency which operated between1983 and 2003.In the summer of 2010 the National Portrait Gallery in London mounted a major exhibition on the work of Format during its twenty years of operation, primarily focusing on its work in the area of portraiture but encouraging amore general assessment of this experiment in feminist picture making. My research departed from this reappraisal of Format and involved exploring the archive sources relating to the organisation in order to both historically document the work of the agency and to trace its legacy for contemporary feminist photographic practice, particularly in Ireland.My PhD seeks to trace this legacy primarily through a discussion of my own creative practice as a feminist artist and photographer. In the historical research I accessed the available archives holding material related to Format to trace the working practices of the agency and to explore its work around the representation of women in a body of pioneering work which addressed a range of women’s and social justice issues.