Anna Perceval (QMUL) - 2025-26 Students
a.perceval@qmul.ac.uk

Through Their Eyes: Autobiographical Photography and Writing of Jewish Youth in London's East End, 1935–1975

This project examines the Brady Photographic Archive, a collection of photographs documenting a Jewish youth club in east London from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the 1970s. The archive, nearly lost in the late 1970s, was rediscovered and between 2018 and 2024 developed into a public digital archive supported by oral histories and exhibitions. The collection reveals a largely hidden history of first- and second-generation Jewish immigrant youth, many of whom documented their own lives through photographs, newsletters and magazines now held across local archives. The research aims to understand how photographs and young people’s writings produce historical knowledge through memory-work, and how such materials are interpreted, displayed and received in archives, museums and digital platforms. It asks how photographs shift in meaning as they move from personal objects to public heritage. The project also explores what methodological and theoretical challenges arise when presenting autobiographical material created by young people, and how these historical sources inform contemporary research and curatorial practice around youth cultures. Methodologically, the project combines archival research, visual analysis, and oral history interviews with former youth club members. It examines the change of status of found photography as it becomes social-historical documentation and will use the concept of ‘imagetexts’ to offer a framework for understanding the construction of narratives and subjective commentary within photo collections, particularly in the context of generating microhistories. The research is informed by theories of memory, nostalgia, and the archive as an active, interpretive space. By focusing on an under-studied local history and a co-created archive, the project contributes new insights into memory studies, vernacular photography, and museology.

Principal Supervisor: Prof. Alastair Owens

Supervisor at Partner Organisation: Richard Martin, Director of Education and Public Programmes

Partner Organisation: Whitechapel Gallery