SPEAKING WITH is a one-day event that explores voicing historical subjectivity through interdisciplinary and feminist discourse around researching, writing and making. The event is co-organised by PhD candidates Marita Fraser and Caroline Douglas, and sets out to explore Fraser’s idea of 'Speaking With' as a new feminist research methodology.

We are delighted to announce keynote speakers: Professor Carol Mavor (University of Copenhagen) and Nadia Hebson (Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm) and PhD researchers will present their work to consider: strands of re-enactment as a research method; the subjectivity of the researcher/artist/archive; and what it means to work in the context of historical research. This event will be chaired by Professor Rebecca Fortnum (RCA).

The day is co-convened by Douglas and Fraser. It was generously supported by Techne AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership.

Paper 'Sonsy Fishwives'
Elizabeth Johnston Hall was a ‘fishwife’ from Newhaven. She was one of the world’s first photographed subjects to be self-consciously presented as art (Stevenson, 1981:23).
This paper explores the history of women in early photographic practice through the case study of a C19th voiceless subject. This paper uses re-enactment and montage as methods to explore the limits and possibilities of getting close to one of early photography’s ‘unknown women’. In doing so, it interrogates Hall’s experience of being photographed into the ‘canon’ and asks how our understanding of early photography might be enriched by examining the medium through the lens of these working class, fisherwomen sitters, about whom we know so very little.