Join us on 12 March for the 2025 Octavia Elfrida Saunders Memorial Lecture.

This year's Octavia Elfrida Saunders Memorial Lecture will be given by accomplished photographer of international standing, Ingrid Pollard MBE. Join us on the 12 March at 5.15pm in School 2 of the St Salvator's Quad.

Ingrid Pollard's 40-year career as a photographer has queried how images are staged and constructed. Working in and with archives, her work explores how the body is interpreted through gender, sexuality, race, class and beauty, and their representations in photographic histories and theories. Pollard questions the long-held tradition of the English romantic idyll within rural geographies as she works to uncover stories and histories that are hidden in plain sight within the landscape.

In ‘The Importance of SITE/SIGHT', Pollard will examine and present the visual elements of her practice through various works and installations. Central to her work is an artistic practice that integrates photographic history, aesthetics and techniques of making. She investigates so-called ‘issue based' work whose elements and ideas are developed through research into photography's history, its aesthetics, and relations with other media.

Photography raises questions that challenge the typical ‘white walled' gallery while occupying and altering that very space. By making use of lens-based materials in relation with other media, including printmaking, sculpture and text, Pollard aims to transform the meanings, expectations and associations of each medium.

In 2020 Pollard received the Freelands Award and was Nominated for the Turner Prize and, in 2024, she was the Hasselblad Foundation Awardee. Her  work is held in major public collections, including Tate Britain and the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Moderna Muséet, Stockholm.

Image Caption: Ingrid Pollard, From the series The Boy Who Watches Ships Go By, 2002. Photo emulsion on stretched cotton canvas, 30.5 x 30.5 cm. Collection: Art Institute of Chicago. Image courtesy of the artist.

A reception at 79 North Street will follow the lecture. All are most welcome.