Tracy Marshall

interview by Photo Meet assistant editor David Fletcher.

David Fletcher: You have made a big impact on the UK photography scene in a relatively short time. Was your appointment at Belfast Exposed in 2014 your first job working with photography?

Tracy Marshall: Yes. Before that I was Director of Development and interim CEO of the Ulster Orchestra, a job that evolved from freelance development work for charities in Ireland and America, and roles directing development and campaigns for various charities in the UK. I struggled a bit with the change to the arts at first, because a lot of my drive is about making change and having an impact. What kept me focused on working in the voluntary sector for so long was the sense that every day I could potentially make a difference. I struggled to find that initially in the arts – but then I discovered the potential for engagement, accessibility and education and I began to develop this side of my focus more. That gave me some of the personal satisfaction I was looking for, so when the job at Belfast Exposed came up, I felt that it was somewhere I could make a difference too. I only intended to stay a year or two but I ended up really enjoying it and stayed for five years.

DF: I believe you had a baby when you were eighteen. How did that affect your life plan?

TM: It fell apart. I was doing a history degree and I had a real desire to go into journalism.
After I had Klara, I found the Open University and reactivated my plan with a focus on humanities and made my first real steps into the arts. That was a life-saver because I was able to look after the baby, do some work to earn money and still finish my BA and then a master’s. I would like to finish a PhD I once began someday.

DF: This story and your subsequent success must be inspirational for young women who find themselves in a similar position.

TM: I have always been determined to find a way to get things done, a way to survive. I wanted to defy the single parent stereotype and I was determined to get my own direction. I think this tenaciousness is what helps me with the fundraising aspect of my job.

DF: What took you to Liverpool? 

TM: My partner, the photographer Ken Grant, wanted to move back to Liverpool to work on some projects there. The job at Open Eye came up, and it seemed a good opportunity for both of us to try something different. 

DF: Not satisfied with your full-time job, you also set up Northern Narratives with Ken Grant. How did that come about?

TM: What’s really frustrating sometimes when you work as Director of an arts organisation is that there isn’t an outlet for your own personal creative instincts. The curator is responsible for artistic decisions and it’s not appropriate to interfere too much - you need to concentrate on the business side of the organisation. With my background in history and journalism, I was finding myself drawn creatively to working with documentary photography. The only way for me to do that without a conflict of interest in my director posts was freelance - that’s when I came up with the idea for New Brighton Revisited and some of the other projects we have been working on subsequently.

DF: Tell us about the aims of Northern Narratives and how it will develop in the future.

TM: It’s really to give me a creative outlet and a voice - to do projects that I like and feel some creative fulfilment from. Before the lockdown I got a contract from the RPS for a Holocaust project with portraits of UK-based survivors and their families, to mark 75 years since the end of the Holocaust. This was such an amazing project but has been postponed due to the Covid lockdown. I was also working with Del Barrett , Cheryl Newman and Verena Kaspar-Eisert and the Hundred Heroines Foundation on a large show of women in photography for Photo London – again, obviously, that has been altered because of Covid. I have been working since 2016 with Irish curator Linda Shelvin on a tour in Ireland and USA of Martin Parr’s work and that will finally start in February 2021 and will last until September 2022, with over 200 pieces of Martin’s work. I have just started work on a new project with the Portuguese curator Angela Ferreira about women and identity which is planned for 2023. 

DF: As well as New Brighton Revisited, which I’m sure everyone has heard of, you also did a big exhibition in China. How did that come about?

TM: Sian Bonnell of MMU [Manchester Metropolitan University] was doing a graduate show at the Pingyao International Photography Festival and they wanted a show about British documentary photography so she asked me to organise it. I then brought in back into the Look Festival at Open Eye which I was directing at the time.

DF: What was your involvement in the 209 women project?

TM: So much. Hilary Wood approached me at the opening of New Brighton Revisited with the idea and asked me to help get it off the ground with her; we worked solidly at it for 6 months night and day. We also had Cheryl Newman helping us with the curation. It involved 209 MPs and 209 female photographers so it was a huge project and a lot of people to work the logistics around. 

DF: You have said you have an obsession with context. Is this because it was important growing up in NI to know the background of people you met and mixed with?

TM: Possibly, because you always needed to know where someone was from before you told them too much about yourself. Sadly, that was the case in the place and times I grew up in. But also, it’s because of my interest in history, in particular the discovery that there is more than one side in the history of events, depending on who wrote it. Context means a lot to me in how I work with photography and photographers.  

DF: The latest development in your career is to become the Director of the new Bristol Photo Festival.  This is very exciting news for everyone in the photography world but presumably particularly exciting for you to be at the centre of it? Tell us something about the background to the foundation of the Festival. How did it come about? Whose idea was it?

TM: I’m very pleased about it - it’s been coming together for over a year now but only launched in the last few weeks. We have had a few challenges to start with in these early stages – but it will be so impactful for the city as a festival, and an overall organisation. What makes it so special, and for me so important to work with, is that it’s not only for two months every two years, it’s truly embedded in the city: the projects on the ground working across the city – our Growing Spaces and Living Room projects for example, the mentorship and education programmes which will put photography at the core of learning and development, the commissions for local and international artists focused the city and its various components, and then the actual exhibitions themselves – it is a really special festival.

DF: In a nutshell, what are the aims and ambitions of the Festival?

TM: We want to develop Bristol as a hub for photography. There are some fantastic photography courses in Bristol and around the south west and there are really key photographers and artists living and working in the area. There are also some big venues focused on and passionate about photography, as well as publishers and arts groups working in photography on the ground and internationally. We want to draw all this energy together and build an organisation which not only brings international artists to Bristol every two years, but creates in a sustained and ongoing way, all year every year, opportunities for local artists: mentorships, training, commissions and exhibition platforms. We are also working on year-round engagement with Bristol communities, bringing them together to create projects about Bristol and for Bristol under an umbrella of photography.

DF: Your work at Open Eye and with Northern Narratives was very community focused. How do you plan to engage the community in Bristol?

TM: We have already been doing that in the process of the last 12 months’ development of the festival and its programme. From July 2019 we worked with communities all across Bristol to develop the core of the engagement programme. Alejandro Acín – who is Director of Engagement and Education for the festival – has brought this energy and experience of working within communities across the city, to build up groups to help with the development of our program within the city.

DF: Given the recent events in Bristol associated with the Black Lives movement, will there be a particular focus on the black community in Bristol?

TM: Back last December/January we commissioned Lebohang Kganye to do work with the Georgian House around the history of Bristol. We are also working with Sarah Waiswa, a Kenya-based Ugandan artist who is curating a show from the Commonwealth archives. We were thinking about all this before the recent protests and have reflected the city’s past in our program. We recognise that diversity in every way within our program and our work is essential. 

DF: You grew up in a divided community in Northern Ireland. Do you think that gives you an insight into the division between the back and white communities?

TM: I don’t think it gives me a special insight, but maybe an understanding that there is no easy route. Difficult conversations have to be held about histories that can’t be ignored and need to be dealt with. 

DF: Bristol seems to be en-route to becoming the most important city in the UK for photography, yet there is no permanent collection in the city as far as I am aware. Do you think for instance that the V&A, which has an enormous photography collection, including that belonging to the Royal Photographic Society, could be encouraged to establish a permanent collection in one of the city’s museums, perhaps a rotating one? Especially since the V&A is only able to exhibit a fraction of its collection, even with its new photography galleries.

TM: That has a nice logic. The museums in Bristol have contributed a huge amount to the Festival and from Easter until September there will be photography in virtually all of the City Council buildings. Perhaps this will be a way for them to test out whether they can give photography a more permanent home in their gallery spaces.

DF: Let’s look at the elephant in the room. Can arts institutions survive the Covid epidemic? How do they need to change? 

TM: I was really worried but then very surprised and pleased by the recent announcement of government funding. If that money is cleverly allocated, many organisations may be able to plod through. When you get statutory funding, you are encouraged to become self-sufficient through ticket and product sales. Those that have succeeded most at this are the ones who have lost most income. The government will hopefully support those who had been most successful at becoming self-sustaining.

DF: Dedicated photography galleries are a relatively new development in the art world. Do you think they are particularly vulnerable or is photography sufficiently entrenched now as an art form?

TM: I think this is down to the director of each organisation. They will need to think in clever ways and not always assume you can do things the same way you did them before. Photography can be self-standing as the core of an arts institution – but it does need to be able to be much more than just an exhibition space.

DF: Photography has started making inroads into traditional art galleries like the Tate. Do you see photography becoming part of art museum collections rather than being exhibited in dedicated galleries? Or is this relatively new part of their collections under threat as they struggle financially?

TM: Again, it is down to the director’s focus and personality. Galleries who do much more than four to six exhibitions a year and offer outreach and engagement work in communities, who work with schools and universities and who diversify their focus - without losing their relevance -  are the ones who will be able to stay singular entities and not get consumed inside bigger institutions.

DF: Assuming you agree that photography has influenced social change in the past, do you think that it still has the capacity to do so? 

TM: I do and I feel strongly that it has played quite a large part in how people have individually and collectively recorded and dealt with lockdowns. I know of some really significant projects that have emerged as a result. It’s going to be fascinating to see how we capture and reflect the next decade in photography emerging from an international and world-wide experience like this. 

DF: Are there too many photographers in the world?

TM: I think there are not enough jobs and work, that’s the issue really. But photography needs a wide, diverse array of practitioners producing views and images of the world. I don’t think there are too many photographers, but there are not enough resources to do work with everyone unfortunately. 

DF: Do you have any advice for photographers struggling to make their voices heard?

TM: There seems to be lots of advice for new graduates but less for mid-career photographers. The advice I would give at the moment is to keep contact with organisations like us, Grain and Redeye for example. Keep work ready and make sure your website looks good and is up to date. Social media has a role but keep it modest and authentic. Be positive. 

DF: You have announced some big names for the first Bristol Photo Festival next year. This will obviously be attractive to audiences, but will there also be room for new work and new photographers?

TM: As well as the main exhibitions with international names, we hope to have as many as ten smaller exhibitions. One of my jobs at the moment is trying to find additional venues for these. Alejandro is also planning a mentoring program which will be accessible via an Open Call and is for all photographers. As we move into the second edition we will be offering more commission opportunities and Open Calls. These are a core part of our output each year. I also want to create opportunities with Northern Narratives for mid-career photographers - our aim with Northern Narratives is to make a difference and I want to make it a platform for photographers whose work is not being seen.

DF: You have spent much of your career fundraising and building partnerships. Do you think photographers should focus more on the business aspects of their practice? 

TM: For many photographers it is not a natural thing to push themselves and that is part of why they make work which is authentic to themselves. You have to be aware of the need to make an income but It’s a challenge to do so and not become too commercially focused. 

DF: Given that it is difficult to establish a career as a photographer, do you think that there is a career path for photography graduates in curation or arts administration?

TM: There are probably even fewer jobs in these fields than as a photographer. But it would be helpful to their career to understand the way galleries work and the kind of management, marketing and budgeting we do for our programmes and exhibitions. 

DF: What achievements are you most proud of in your career so far?

TM: In photography it would have to be the New Brighton Revisited show because it turned into something so much more than I set out for it to be. From a spontaneous idea, it grew into a project that all three photographers were passionate about, and they gave me huge access to their time and their archives, including work they had not looked at for years. I would say that over 80% of the audience were nothing to do with photography, they came to see their mother who had died, or their sister, in a picture, they brought their grandchildren, they travelled long distances to get there. It had a huge impact on the town and beyond, with a Year of Culture afterwards which I was part of. I was just a girl from Belfast who thought it would be a good idea to show the work of these photographers in the town where it was made, a town where I had never been. I’m also really proud of 209 Women and not just the project but the legacy of networks and support women working in photography found from that – I know a lot of women photographers in that project are now firm friends or work together – who hadn’t met at all until that project. Outside of photography I am most proud of my tenacious ability to bounce back, keep going and still be focused on making changes and impacts. 

DF: That kind of brings us full circle. You have described throughout your career a desire to have an impact, right from your early involvement in the voluntary sector, and there is no doubt you have achieved that in the photography world. Do you see photography specifically as your future now or would you like to work with other areas of the arts?

TM: No, not now. I am surrounded by photographers and photography and I doubt very much if I will move beyond it now. I am living with a photographer for goodness sake – what would we talk about if I went elsewhere now! However, you can never tell where paths take you- so never say never. I would not have ever imagined directing all these galleries and festivals when I was working on the campaign strategies of homeless charities in Ireland 20 years ago. 

DF: Are you still thinking of doing a PhD?

TM: I would like to, because I always feel I have not quite fulfilled my own potential. Children and work got in the way. Once the Festival is running next year I will have more time. If I can bring my social history, my old journalistic desires, my desire for impact and my work in photography together in a PhD on a subject that I feel passionate about, I will do that.