This paper outlines key dilemmas in curating 20th century women’s photography in Scotland from the position that there should be multiple narratives rather than one over-arching narrative of photographic history in this subject area. It argues that this approach can build on Scotland’s distinct regionalism, with the women responding to rural, urban and island contexts and communities rather than one idea of ‘Scotland’. With numerous women’s work dispersed across a multitude of different types of archives and collections from Dumfries & Galloway in the south to Shetland in the north, the curatorial is also a means to re-connect bodies of work between geographically distinct repositories.
What does an exhibition look like when acknowledging such differences over commonalities? How can there be a coherent exhibition narrative, when the women have different motivations, aims and processes? Brownrigg has employed a ‘context sensitive’ (Lind, M, 2010) curatorial approach to draw out process, methods, aims and message through exhibition-making.
Where women would describe themselves in numerous ways – authors, filmmakers, folklorists, ethnographers, activists, community workers, teachers - beyond a sole definition of photographer, how can an exhibition counter the assumptions of ‘amateur’?
Furthermore, how should the curator represent individual women photographers when they are no longer there to speak for themselves? What methods can be employed when curating a historical show from a contemporary timeframe in order to acknowledge issues arising from class, privilege, sex and race? The paper concludes on how a curatorial methodology can broaden a response to feminist practice beyond a biographical approach, by devising layouts to counteract the weighing of biography over the work itself.
The paper draws from Brownrigg’s ongoing curatorial work. These include the survey show ‘Glean: Early 20th century women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland’, City Art Centre, Edinburgh (2022/23); and two solo exhibitions of Edinburgh photographers Sandra George (Glasgow International, 2024) and Franki Raffles (‘Observing Women at Work’, Reid Gallery, The Glasgow School of Art, 2017). ‘Glean’ presented the work of 14 pioneering women photographers and filmmakers working in Scotland during the early 20th century. The women were Violet Banks (1886-1985), Helen Biggar (1909-1953), Christina Broom (1862-1939), M.E.M. Donaldson (1876-1958), Dr Beatrice Garvie (1872-1959), Jenny Gilbertson (1902-1990), Isobel F Grant (1887–1983), Ruby Grierson (1904-1940), Marion Grierson (1907-1998), Isobel Wylie Hutchison (1889-1982), Johanna Kissling (1875-1961), Isabell Burton MacKenzie (1872-1958), Margaret Fay Shaw (1903-2004) and Margaret Watkins (1884-1969).
Sandra George (1957-2013) was a Black community worker in Craigmillar, Edinburgh, taking thousands of images of community projects across Scotland between the 1980s to late 2000s. Social justice and equity was at the heart of both George’s community and artistic work, which was not exhibited during her lifetime. Franki Raffles (1955-1994) was a feminist social documentary photographer living in Edinburgh, who photographed women at work under different political systems in Scotland and the Soviet Union, in the late 1980s.
This paper was presented at the sixth Fast Forward: Women in Photography conference, 'Beyond The Canon: Exhibiting, Curating and Collecting Photography by Women', (October 10-12, 2025) at Centre of Contemporary Art in Toruń, Poland. This conference was a partnership with the University of Nicolaus Copernicus, Toruń and Vintage Photo Festival. The conference explored the (hi)stories of women in photography with a particular reference to how women’s work is curated, exhibited and collected by museums, institutions, festivals, galleries and individuals.