ABOUT THE PROJECT
In the summer of 2019, this website was created to document the summer research project of two University of Manitoba, Faculty of Architecture undergraduate students, Hanna Hendrickson-Rebizant and Lindsay Mamchur. The website continues to be a platform for this research project in the summer of 2020, although it is now managed by Lindsay from her home due to the COVID-19 situation.
The research project reflects the title of the book-in-progress by their supervisor Dr. Susan Close, Photography and the Built Environment. Last summer, the project focused on establishing the website as a chronicle of their research activities. As of the end of last August, the website features a literature review, a gallery of images by photographers under consideration for discussion in the book, and a blog.
This summer, the project aims to continue sharing the research process via the blog, to advance the project into a new social medium, and to garner further interest in photography, design, and undergraduate research.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Photography and the Built Environment is an examination of the relationships between photography and design. This study utilizes an interdisciplinary approach informed by the methodology of cultural analysis. This book analyzes the longstanding and often dialectic relationship between photography and the built environment. Specifically, it argues that when used as social practice, photography is a significant tool to investigate the built environment that provides insight into understandings about space and place by both their architects and their photographers. This study is not a historical survey or an overview of the photographic medium in relationship to the subject of architecture. Instead, it is a reflection on some bodies of work by photographers whose practices engage with the intersection of photography with the built environment.
It contains three central themes: ‘Histories and Narratives,'
‘De-categorizing and Metaphor' and ‘Issues and Agency.' Each section provides a close reading informed by a cultural analysis perspective of photographs concerning concepts that include placemaking, mise-en-scene, narrative, settlement and surveillance as well as issues such as photographic social activism and its relationship to the built environment. Selected images related to these ideas are examined from the work of both historic and contemporary photographers and include: Carleton Watkins, Frederick Evans, Eugène Atget, Charles Marville, Gabor Szilasi, Geoffrey James, Bern and Hilla Becher,
Kenneth O’ Halloran, Lynne Cohen, Candida Höfer, Anthony Haughey, and Donovan Wylie. It should appeal to photographic scholars and practitioners as well as the general public with interest in design culture.
ABOUT US
Lindsay Mamchur is an Environmental Design student entering her fourth year at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture.
Lindsay is an amateur photographer. As is expected of a student of landscape architecture and urbanism, Lindsay is inclined to photograph landscapes, but she is always looking to experiment with new subjects as a result of her research.
Since the outset of this project, Lindsay’s interest in photography, history, critical theory, and philosophy has grown immensely. She has relished the opportunity to explore new books on these topics. Her attention for and enjoyment of reading regained, Lindsay has made a “to read” list which lengthens at a rate that outpaces the speed of her reading. The long list includes Aldo Leopold, Margaret Atwood, and Robert Adams’ Art Can Help.
Most recently, she finished Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Susan Close is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Architecture and a Senior Fellow at St. John’s College, both at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. Close’s book Framing Identity: Social Practice of Photography in Canada (1880-1920) (Arbeiter Ring Publishing 2007) addressed how Canadian women at the turn of the twentieth century made photographs as a social practice to establish identity.
Dr. Close currently teaches interdisciplinary courses in history, theory and photography and is working on a book on the intersection of photography and the built environment.
2019
ABOUT THE PROJECT
This website has been constructed to highlight the summer research project undertaken by two University of Manitoba, Faculty of Architecture undergraduate students, Hanna Hendrickson-Rebizant and Lindsay Mamchur. They are research assistants for the book, Photography and the Built Environment currently being completed by Dr. Susan Close. Hanna and Lindsay are recipients of University of Manitoba undergraduate research awards in order to be mentored by Dr. Close on this project.
The website features a collection of Hanna and Lindsay’s critical analyses of research sources as well as a gallery of images under consideration for inclusion in the final manuscript.
Both research assistants have had the opportunity to learn about developing a literature review, writing research analysis, investigation of copyright permission for images used in both the book and website as well as the actual website construction.
ABOUT US
Hanna Hendrickson-Rebizant is an Environmental Design student entering her fourth year at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture. Her research surrounds issues and agency, as well as surveillance in architecture and border conflicts. She has primarily been researching Irish photographers whose work shed light on the various conflicts surrounding the Irish border. Hanna hopes to apply her research findings to her career in an effort to make spaces safer, more inclusive and more enjoyable overall.
Aside from being in design school, Hanna is a competitive badminton player. She has been number one in Manitoba and number seven in Canada in ladies’ singles. For the past three summers, Hanna has travelled to Odense, Denmark to train for badminton. Travelling to Denmark has allowed Hanna to experience a new side of the design world. Because of this, she plans on pursuing graduate school
in a Nordic country as she has fallen in love with the ‘hygge’ lifestyle.
Hanna attributes her successes in school and in life in part to her badminton career. Badminton has taught her how to time manage, as well as how to set and
achieve goals.
Lindsay Mamchur is an Environmental Design student entering her third year at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture.
Through this research project, Lindsay has found herself becoming more interested in the different ways photographers have historically and currently conceive of the role of photography. Her passion for history and growing curiosity for critical theory and philosophy are encouraging this discovery.
Lindsay is exploring documentarians like Eugène Atget, photographers that capture and comment on their socio-political context like Robert Adams, and artist photographers that exemplify a Renaissance sensibility in their fusion of art and science like Abelardo Morell. Lindsay is learning the versatility of the medium and enjoying it greatly.
Lindsay is also an amateur photographer. She looks up to many of the photographers that she is researching. Her favorite place to make photographs is her family cottage in southeastern Manitoba.
Outside of school and her interest in photography, Lindsay is a foodie and her household’s resident barista. She loves eating, drinking coffee and her favorite foods are bread and cheese.
Susan Close is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Architecture and a Senior Fellow at St. John’s College, both at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. Close’s book Framing Identity: Social Practice of Photography in Canada (1880-1920) (Arbeiter Ring Publishing 2007) addressed how Canadian women at the turn of the twentieth century made photographs as a social practice to establish identity.
Dr. Close currently teaches interdisciplinary courses in history, theory and photography and is working on a book on the intersection of photography and the built environment.
ABOUT OUR APPRECIATION
Dr. Close, Hanna and Lindsay would like to thank Kenlyn Collins from the University of Manitoba's Fine Arts and Architecture Library for her guidance in the initial steps of their research. They would like to acknowledge and thank Tobe Duggan and Althea Wheeler from the University's Copyright Office for their willing support in copyright matters.
They would also like to thank the generous photographers whose work has been featured on this website. These photographers are Anthony Haughey, Kevin Fox, Kenneth O'Halloran, Kate Nolan, Geoffrey James and Robert Adams. Additionally, they extend their appreciation to David Whaples at the Yale University Art Gallery and Rebecca Robertson at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco for their kind assistance.
Photo credit: J. Mamchur
Photo credit: S. Close.
Lastly, they share their gratitude for the Undergraduate Research Award program organized by the University of Manitoba's Office of the Vice-President (Research and International) without which this website and their summer research opportunity would not have been possible.