Description

The Franki Raffles Archive Research Project output for REF 2021 UoA 34: Multi-component submission including Component 1 - Digital Artefact: H: Website content,   Component 2 - D: Journal Article; Component 3 - C: Chapter.  PI Alistair Scott  

300 word description

This website brings together the photographic practice of the documentary photographer, Franki Raffles (1955-94). The research aim was to use this digital platform to prevent her work remaining hidden and unknown, and to begin to assess her contribution to feminist photography. Raffles gained recognition for her groundbreaking images for the charity Zero Tolerance’s campaign in 1992-93 raising awareness of male violence against women. She died aged thirty-nine in December 1994 and as a consequence her work had been forgotten until the start of this research project.

 

Working with Raffles’ family, Scott brought together the photographs from her entire career. With the website he began the process of curating and interpreting her practice and disseminating her work. The research identified eleven major projects and selected key images from throughout her career. The website provides contextual background and biographical material. The PI undertook new primary research about the significance of this work with ten interviews and embedded video from contributors who had known Raffles’ working practice.

 

The website has facilitated further scholarly investigation and further components for this output. The entire archive material was deposited with the Photographic Archive, St Andrews University Library. There was further dissemination through presentations at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh and the University of Stirling, and an exhibition at St Andrews Photography Festival 2016. The PI published a peer-reviewed article (Component 2) in the journal Studies in the History of Scottish Photography. This resulted in a collaboration with Jenny Brownrigg, Exhibitions Director, Glasgow School of Art, to curate the exhibition Observing Women Working – Franki Raffles, Reid Gallery, Glasgow March-April 2017, accompanied by a publication (Component 3). This led to the Scott/Brownrigg presentation at the International Fast Forward Women in Photography Lithuania Conference, Nov 2017. Dissemination continues for example with the Tate Contemporary Art Network Study Day Nov 2019. 

Output Component 1 - H: Website content

Output Component 2: Journal article Studies in the History of Scottish Photography Summer 2017

Documentation of the exhibition 'Franki Raffles - Observing Women Working' Reid Gallery, Glasgow School of Art, March-April 2017

Output Component 3 - Observing Women Working - publication in connection with exhibition at the Reid Gallery, March/April 2017

Link to film of Scott/Brownrigg paper at the Fast Forward Women in Photography International Conference, National Art Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania, November 2017

Public Symposium 'Assessing the legacy and impact of feminist photographer Franki Raffles', CCA Glasgow 25 April 2017

Tate Contemporary Art Network Study Day on Franki Raffles, Nov 2019

Evidence of impact - Journal article by Marine Benoit-Blain

Raffles's images of International Women's Day 1988-94 - disseminated IWD 2020

Link to digitised images from Special Collections, St Andrews University Library made available 2020

Dissemination on Wild Fires Website

Dissemination on Photo Monitor website