Last June, Jonathan Vickery received funding from the Warwick Global Research Priority in International Development (GRP-ID) to research and curate a small exhibition. While intended as an annual event, the initial exhibits are the best submissions (along with the winners) of the GRP-ID Annual Photography Competition (2015).

Scroll down the GRP-ID website to see:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/research/priorities/internationaldevelopment

The GRP-ID Annual Photography Competition is open to any Warwick student or staff member, and looks for photographs that help us ‘re-image’ International Development. What does this mean? When people think of International Development, they usually think exclusively in terms of images of poor people in dysfunctional places. And yet, so-called developing countries are usually places of vast cultural production and colourful creativity. The visual language of International Development, in other words, needs expanding. To do this, we need to understand how International Development is defined ‘visually’ – by the store of images that are presented to us by the media, or stereotypes, or just our common knowledge. The subjects of visual research may be places, organisations, development projects -- not just in far off lands but here in the West (featuring ethnic or faith communities, recent immigrant cultural life, refugees, exiles, diasporas or temporary residents). The exhibition will therefore provide a framework to discuss and devise a new research front for the GRP-ID -- visual research and research on the visual.

Jonathan was Chair of the Judges Panel in June 2015, and will open the exhibition on Friday 16th October. It will be launched -- along with the Annual Photography Competition 2016 -- at the special public lecture of Winnie Byanyima, (an Oxfam executive), at Warwick Business School on the evening of Thursday the 15th. The submissions will be judged in April 2016 and announced at the Annual Public International Development Lecture in May 2016.