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Dr Antigoni Memou

Senior Lecturer

Department of Architecture & Visual Arts , School of Arts and Creative Industries

Dr Antigoni Memou is senior lecturer in Visual Theories at the School of Arts and Creatives Industries and Course leader of BA Photography.

Areas Of Interest

  • The history and theory of photography
  • The politics of contemporary art
  • Digital image and social media
  • Visual activism and tactical media
  • Art institutions and issues in contemporary display
  • Latin American photographic practices
  • The impact of globalisation on art, photography and culture
  • Cultural and critical theory
  • Cross-disciplinary approaches to art history
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a.memou@uel.ac.uk 020 8223 7542 EB1.28, Docklands
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OVERVIEW

Dr Antigoni Memou is senior lecturer in Visual Theories at the School of Arts and Digital Industries. After a first degree in Archaeology and Art History at the University of Athens (Greece), she completed her MA in Modern and Contemporary Art at Winchester School of Art (University of Southampton) and her PhD at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She has previously taught at the Courtauld Institute of Art, at Nottingham Trent University and in the MA programmes in Photography and Contemporary Art at the Sotheby's Institute of Art in London.

Accordion

External roles

Antigoni is a member of the Association of Art Historians and a member of the Organising Committee of the research seminar Marxism In Culture. She is a member of the Global Nominations Panel for the Prix Pictet (The Global Award in Photography and Sustainability ) and a nominator for First PhotoBook Award, New Media Space, Science Museum, London. 

She has been previously an Associated Researcher in the European Protest Movements’ Network and she has acted as a reviewer for book manuscript in Bloomsbury Academic (Dec. 2015); the peer-reviewed academic journals: Photography and Culture (Jan. 2016); Visual Anthropology (June 2015); History of Photography (July 2013); Photographies (March 2012); Theory, Culture and Society (May 2010) (Special issue on 'Photography and the State'); the Czech National Grant for the Arts (Aug. 2013) and the 36th Macromarketing Conference, College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, Stream: Art, Culture and Markets. (Feb. 2011)

  • Member of the Organising Committee of the research seminar Marxism In Culture (Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, London, U.K.) (2009-today)
  • Member of the Nomination Panel, Kyoto Prize for 2018 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy ("Arts (Painting, Sculpture, Craft, Architecture, Photography, Design", June 2017).
  • Member of the Nomination Panel, First PhotoBook Award, New Media Space, Science Museum, London (2013-today).
  • Member of the Global Nominations Panel, Prix Pictet (The Global Award in Photography and Sustainability)(2013-today).
  • Professional Member of the Association of Art Historians (AAH) (2007-today)
  • Associated Researcher in the European Protest Movements' Network (01 June 2006-30 Dec. 2010)
  • Manuscript Reviewer for: Intellect (Dec. 2018); Verso (Oct. 2018); Bloomsbury Academic (Dec. 2015 & Sept. 2018); Routledge (Aug. 2017 & Nov. 2017).

CURRENT RESEARCH

Antigoni is the author of 'Photography and Social Movements' published by Manchester University Press in 2013. She has published in the academic journals Third Text, Photographies, Philosophy of Photography and Ephemera and she has contributed book chapters to edited collections.

She has presented her research in numerous international academic conferences including the Association of Art Historians Annual Conference (2007 & 2010), where she also co-convened sessions ('Relocations: Photography Within, Across, and Outside the Museum since the 1970' in 2008 and 'In and Out of History: Media and Politics in Latin America'  in 2011). She has been an invited speaker at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University in Istanbul (Turkey) in 2010 and at the conferences  'Curating Resistance: Aesthetics and Ethics in Social Movement' at the  University of Essex in 2010 and 'The French Connection: New Perspectives on French Contemporary Art Across Discipline' at Cambridge University in 2008. In 2012, she was invited to contribute to the 'Art and Globalisation Talks' at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh and in 2014, she was invited to present on Realism at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh as part of the talks: Keywords: A (Polemical) Vocabulary of Contemporary Art.

Accordion

Conferences, symposia, seminars

2015

  • 'A Dissident Museum? Counter-Narratives within the Contemporary Museum', International Conference: Politics, State Power and the Making of Art History, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 18 - 19 June, 2015.
  • 'Global Photography: Notes on the 'Documentary Turn' in Contemporary Art', International Conference: Situating Global Art, InterArt Research Programme (Free University of Berlin) Berlin, 12-14 February, 2015.

2014

  • 'Photography and Realism', Keywords: A (Polemical) Vocabulary of Contemporary Art, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 7 October 2014. [By Invitation]
  • Panel Event: 'What is Photography?', Free Range, Truman Brewery, London, 21 June 2014. [By Invitation]

2012

  • 'Green Alternatives/Conflicting Representations,' International Conference: Eco-images: Altering Environmental Discussions and Political Landscapes, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich, 18-19 April 2012
  • 'Contesting Globalisation: Allan Sekula's "Waiting for the Tear Gas"', Art and Globalisation Talks, Stills Gallery, Edinburgh, 15 March 2012.  [By Invitation]

2011

  •  'Bernd and Hilla Becher,' Seminar at Sotheby's Institute of Art (MA in Contemporary Art), London, UK, 5 October 2011. [By Invitation]

2010

  • 'The Düsseldorf School of Photography,' Seminar at Sotheby's Institute of Art (MA in Contemporary Art), London, UK, 28 October 2010. [By Invitation]
  • 'Carnival Against Capital': From the Street to the Archive, Symposium: Curating Resistance: Aesthetics and Ethics in Social Movement, University of Essex, UK, 27 October 2010. [By Invitation]
  • 'Photography in May '68', Marxism in Culture Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, London, 28 May 2010.
  • 'Rethinking May '68: Photography and Memory', Seminar at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey, 17 May 2010. [By Invitation]
  • 'A Conflict of Representations: Photography and the Internet in the Zapatista Struggle', Session Title: Supplementary Conflicts: Domesticities and Life Histories in Wartime, 36th Association of Art Historians' Annual Conference, University of Glasgow, UK, 15-17 April 2010.
  • 'Thinking about Protest through Images', EU Workshop, Centre for American Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany, 18-20 February 2010.

2009

  • 'Photography and Counter-Globalisation in the Contemporary Art World', Seminar at Sotheby's Institute of Art (MA in Photography), London, UK, 2 March 2009. [By Invitation]

2008

  • 'May 1968 in Paris: Student Movement, Photography and Memory', Summer School: Confronting Cold War Conformity: Peace and Protest Cultures in Europe, 1945-1989, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, 18-25 August 2008.
  • 'Photographs of May 1968 in the Contemporary Museum: A Note on Politics and Aesthetics', International Conference: The French Connection: New Perspectives on French Contemporary Art Across Disciplines, Cambridge University, UK, 24-26 July 2008. [By Invitation]

2007

  • 'The Student Movement of May 1968: Activist Photography, Self Reflection and Antinomies', Session Title: 1968: Activist Art and Its Legacies, 33rd Association of Art Historians' Annual Conference, University of Ulster, Belfast, UK, 12-14 April 2007.
  • 'When It Bleeds, It Leads: Press, Photography and Ideology in the Anti-globalisation Movement' (Genoa 2001), Marie Curie Conference and Training Series: Designing a New Life: Aesthetics and Lifestyles of Political and Social Protest, University of Zurich, Switzerland, 7-10 March 2007.
  • Introduction to the documentary film 'Crossroads' (2006), Marie Curie Conference, University of Zurich, Switzerland, 7-10 March 2007.
  • 'The Student Movement of May 1968: Activist Photography, Self- Reflection and Antinomies', AAH conference preview seminar, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK, 16 March 2007.

2006

  • 'Reclaim the Streets: Social Protest, Photojournalism and Activist Photography', International Conference: Citizenship(s): International Congress on Discourses and Practices, University Fernando Pessoa, Porto, Portugal, 28 June - 1 July 2006.
  • 'Death in Genoa: Notes on Photography, Press and Representation', International Conference: Photography, Power and the Institution, Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies, University of Durham, UK, 8 June 2006. [By Invitation]
  • 'Che Lives  in the Anticapitalist Movement', World Art Postgraduate Symposium, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK, 27 May 2006.
  • 'Reclaim the Streets: Social Protest, Photojournalism and Activist Photography', Modern and Contemporary Research Seminar, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, UK, 20 March 2006.

PUBLICATIONS

Photography and social movements

 

Accordion

Single-Authored Books

Memou, A. (2013) Photography and Social Movements: From the Globalisation of the Movement (1968) to Movement Against Globalisation (2001), Manchester: Manchester University Press. (ISBN978-0-7190-8742-4)

Reviewed by:

  • Tom Snow, 'Visual Politics', Review 31, 2014.
  • Larne Abse Gogarty, Philosophy of Photography, 5:1, 2014.
  • Tity de Vries, Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis, 17:1, 2014. (In Dutch)
  • Davor Konjikušić, Zarez, 396, 20. Studenog 2014. (In Croatian)
  • Douglas Harper, Canadian Journal of Sociology/Cahiers Canadiens de Sociologie 40:2, 2015
  • Duncan Forbes, History of Photography, June 2015
Accordion

Co-Authored Exhibition Catalogue

  • Memou, A., Eyene, C., Dujardin, P., De Boodt, K. (2018) 'Resist! The 1960s Protests, Photography and Visual Legacy', Belgium: Lannoo.
Accordion

Articles in referred journals & book chapters

  • Memou, A. (2020) 'The Repressed Visual Legacies of May 68', in K. Shingler and A. Bouzon, The Other 68s, Oxford: Peter Lange. [Forthcoming, volume and pages tbc.]
  • Memou, A. (2020) 'Photography, Border and the Fear of the 'Racialised Other', in Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, Vol. 16, Issue 2. Available at: http://liminalities.net/16-2/
  • Memou, A. (2019) 'Forgotten Solidarities in the Atelier Populaire Posters', Art & the Public Sphere, Vol. 8, Issue 1, pp.7-21[DOI: 10.1386/aps_00002_1]
  • Memou, A. (2019) 'Spectacular Images of the 'Refugee Crisis'', Photographies, Vol. 12, Issue 1, pp. 81-97. [DOI: 10.1080/17540763.2018.1501728]
  • Memou, A. (2018) 'Visualising Globalisation in Documenta 11's Exhibition Catalogue', in S. Dornhof, B. Hopfener, B. Lutz, N. Buurman (Eds.), Situating Global Art: Topologies, Temporalities, Trajectories, transcript Verlag, Bielefeld. 
  • Memou, A. (2017) 'Art, Activism and the Tate,' Third Text, Vol. 31, Issue 5-6, pp. 619-631.
  • Memou, A. (2016) 'La Culture est l' Inversion de la Vie.' Frances Stracey, Constructed Situations: A New History of the Situationist International, Philosophy of Photography, Vol. 6, Issue 1, January, pp. 157-161.
  • Memou, A. (2014) 'Revolt in Photos: The French '68 in the Student Press and the Mainstream Media', in K. Fahlenbrach, E. Sivertsen, R. Werenskjold (Eds.), Media and Revolt, Berghahn Books, New York, pp. 147-164.
  • Memou, A. (2013) 'Re-appropriating Che's Image: From the Revolution to the Market and Back Again', Ephemera, Vol. 13, Issue 1, May 2013, pp. 449-451.
  • Memou, A. (2012) 'The Art Photography of Joel Sternfeld and Globalisation', Photographies. Vol. 5, Issue 1, March 2012. pp. 3-18.
  • Memou, A. (2012) 'Photography and Postmodernism', in J. Hacking (Ed.), Photography: the Whole Story, Thames and Hudson, London, pp. 418-425.
  • Memou, A. (2012) 'Photography, Uprising and Conflict', in J. Hacking (Ed.), Photography: the Whole Story, Thames and Hudson, London, pp. 542-549.
  • Memou, A. (2012) 'Photography and Globalisation', in J. Hacking (Ed.), Photography: the Whole Story, Thames and Hudson, London, pp. 550-553.
  • Memou, A. (2011) 'Photography and Memory: Rethinking May '68', Philosophy of Photography, Vol. 3, October, pp. 83-96.
  • Memou, A. (2010) 'When It Bleeds, It Leads: Death and Press Photography in the Anti-capitalist Protests in Genoa in 2001', Third Text, Vol. 24, 3, May 2010, pp. 341-351.
  • Memou, A. (2010) 'John Tagg: Disciplinary Frames: Photographic Truths and the Capture of Meaning', Philosophy of Photography, Vol. 1, February, pp. 109-111.
Accordion

Interviews and Other Publications

  • Memou, A. (2018) 'European Borders & the Uncontested Visual Narratives of the "Refugee Crisis"', in States of Europe Newspaper, Publication as product of the collaboration between BA in Photography and BA in Journalism students at the University of East London.
  • Memou, A. (2014) 'Fotografija je također oružje' ('Photography Is Also a Weapon'), interviewed by Davor Konjikušić, Zarez, 396, 20, studenog. (In Croatian)


Peer Reviewer for: International Political Science Review (May 2020); Revista de História da Arte (Jan. 2020); Photography and Culture (Jan. 2016); Photographies (May 2016; March 2012); Visual Anthropology (June 2015); History of Photography (July 2013); Gačr Czech Science Foundation (Photography Proposal) (Aug. 2013); Theory, Culture and Society (May 2010); 36th Macromarketing Conference, College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia, USA, Stream: Art, Culture and Markets. (Feb. 2011)

MODULES

  • Contextual Studies
  • Contemporary Photography
  • Research into Practice
  • Global Photography
  • Dissertation
  • PhD and Professional Doctorate Supervision