This initiative is a new collaborative partnership between three photographic historians, Dr. Tom Allbeson, Dr. Colleen O’Reilly, and Helen Trompeteler. Our collective investigates photography’s assumed democratic credentials as an art form and a medium of mass communication. We believe a historical perspective on the complex relationship between photography and democracy is critical to understanding how the medium and related visual technologies can address the social and political issues of our time.
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Dr. Tom Allbeson
Tom Allbeson is Senior Lecturer in Media History at Cardiff University. His first book addressed photography and postwar reconstruction in Europe, c.1944-1961. Tom is a co-editor of the Journal of War and Culture Studies, and is a member of the Tom Hopkinson Centre for Media History at Cardiff University.
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Dr. Colleen O'Reilly
Colleen O'Reilly completed a PhD in History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh in 2018. Her work addresses the politics of visual pedagogy in Cold War America, examining topics such as Berenice Abbott’s physics photographs and Kodak's promotion of the discourse of visual literacy.
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Helen Trompeteler
Helen Trompeteler is a curator and writer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As Deputy Director at Silver Eye Center for Photography, she brings twenty years of curatorial experience following roles at the Royal Collection Trust (UK), the National Portrait Gallery (UK), and as an independent curator.