Moments of danger: photography, institutions and the history of the future

I received the invitation to deliver a paper as part of a panel about photography at the Science Museum Group’s [SMG] inaugural research conference towards the end of 2015. A few months later, SMG announced its plans to give a significant part of the photography collection held at the National Science and Media Museum – one of the four institutions for which the umbrella group is responsible – to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. What has proved to be a controversial decision will see 400,000 objects, originally the collection of the Royal Photographic Society, and now categorised as ‘art photography’, relocated from Bradford to London (‘National Media Museum invest in science and technology’, 2016). The news came as a particular surprise given the enthusiasm for (art) photography SMG had displayed as recently as September 2013, when – with significant financial backing from Sir Richard Branson and film producer Michael Wilson, among others – Media Space opened at the Science Museum with the express purpose of showcasing Bradford’s impressive photography holdings (‘Media Space – Major new Photography and Art Gallery’, 2013).