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Centre for Research in Memory, Narrative and Histories University of Brighton Research Seminar Series 2010-11 RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES 2010-11 Annebella Pollen, University of Brighton '“Historians in Two Hundred Years' Time Are Going To Die for That!” Events and Non-events in the Mass Observation Archive's "One Day for Life" Photography Collection' Wednesday 17th November 2010 5.30 get together and drinks for 6.00 start until c. 7.30 M57, CRD, Mezzanine Floor, Grand Parade, University of Brighton The 55,000 amateur photographs that make up the One Day for Life collection, housed since 1990 in the Mass Observation Archive, are the result of an ambitious charitable campaign. “Ordinary people everywhere” were invited to submit a photograph of everyday life in Britain on 14 August 1987, accompanied by a pound per print, to compete for a place in what would become a bestselling publication. As a manufactured event made of massed ‘non-events’, One Day for Life’s organisers self-consciously constructed the project as commemorative. Photographers pictured and performed topicality and tradition through their selected subjects and styles, and the latent historical potential of the results were recognised as they were archived at the close of the project. This paper situates One Day for Life in the context of popular historical consciousness in the 1980s and in relation to the complex temporality of photographs as anticipated memory, taken ‘then’ of a ‘now’ for an unspecified future. With the help of questionnaire and interview responses from 150 One Day for Life photographers and organisers, this paper reflects on the historical value of the archival material twenty years on. Annebella Pollen is Lecturer in the History of Art and Design at the University of Brighton, and former Research Fellow for the project Methodological Innovations: Using Mass Observation. For the past four years she has been an AHRC-funded PhD student at the Photography and the Archive Research Centre, London College of Communication. All welcome from inside and outside the University. For further information please contact Graham Dawson: [log in to unmask] telephone 01273 643089 or visit the Centre's website: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/mnh -------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA mailing list -------------------------------------------------------- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the MECCSA list, please visit: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=MECCSA&A=1 ------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. Membership is open to all who teach and research these subjects in HE institutions, via either institutional or individual membership. The field includes film and TV production, journalism, radio, photography, creative writing, publishing, interactive media and the web; and it includes higher education for media practice as well as for media studies. This mailing list is a free service from MeCCSA and is not restricted to members. For further information, please visit: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/ --------------------------------------------------------