Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Chris Wright MA, PhD

In the 1920’s anthropologist Arthur Hocart wrote about the reaction of Solomon Islanders to photographs –

“The soul is called galagala, which also means a shadow, a reflection; it is caught in a camera. A Shortland man says ‘it stop all over a man’: by taking a looking glass you can see it. When a man dies, his soul (galagala) comes out at the mouth: some men can see it by the use of charms. Rakoto says it is just like a man and big or small according as it belongs to an adult or a child. A certain shadowiness seems associated with departing spirits, for one man asked whether a vague figure in an advertisment of Odol [a brand of soap] was a ghost.”

1922 A.M.Hocart ‘The Cult of the Dead in Eddystone. Part 1’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 52: 71-112

Research interests

My research interests centre around visual anthropology, including photography, visual culture, aesthetics, film, material culture, contemporary art, and the relation of visual images to ethno-history.

I have been involved in various projects to return collections of anthropological photographs to local communities in New Mexico, Sikkim, and the Solomon Islands and curate exhibitions in those locations. These involved a wide range of strategies for ‘returning’ photographs to individuals and groups, from photographs hung on strings in people’s houses, to major permanent exhibitions. I also co-curated The Impossible Science of Being: dialogues between anthropology and photography at the Photographers Gallery, London in 1995, and Presence at Leighton House, London in 2003. The latter was an innovatory exhibition that featured interventions and installations (including a sound piece by the artist Mohini Chandra) by four contemporary artists and archival material from the Royal Anthropological Institute Photographic Collection. Both sets of material were inserted alongside the existing permanent exhibits at Leighton House.

I have carried out fieldwork in the Solomon Islands, South Pacific in 1998 and in 2000-2001, focusing on links between photography, material culture, and memory, and this formed the basis of my PhD. I am currently working on this material as the basis of a book “The Echo of Things”: photography in the western Solomon Islands and a manuscript has been submitted to Duke University Press awaiting readers comments.

I am also currently working on the practical and theoretical connections between anthropology and contemporary art, particularly in relation to the anthropology of the senses. In 2003 I was the co-initiator and co-organiser of Fieldworks: dialogues between art and anthropology, a major 3-day international conference held at Tate Modern, London. The conference archive can be accessed online via the Tate Modern website.

Selected publications

1995 The Impossible Science of Being: dialogues between anthropology and photography Co-author and co-editor. The Photographers’ Gallery, London ISBN 0-907879-47-0

1996 Tricky Positions Anthropology Today 12 (2) pp.12-16 ISSN 0307-6776

1997 An Unsuitable Man: the photographs of Francis R. Barton Pacific Arts 15/16 pp.42-60 (refereed) ISSN 018-4552

1998 The Third Subject: perspectives on visual anthropology Anthropology Today 14 (4) pp.16-22 (refereed) ISSN 0307-6776

2003 Supple Bodies in Photography’s Other Histories Christopher Pinney and Nic Petersen (eds). Duke University Press pp.146-169 ISBN 0-8223-3113-6

2004 Material and Memory: photography in the western Solomon Islands Journal of Material Culture Vol.9 (1) pp.73-85 (refereed) ISSN 1359-1835 (DOI 10.1177/1359183504041090)

2005 Contemporary Art and Anthropology Co-author and co-editor with Arnd Schneider. Featuring 12 contributions from other authors. Berg. ISBN 1-84520-103-5

Excerpt from Contemporary Art and Anthropology:

“For anthropologists to engage with art practices means embracing new ways of seeing and new ways of working with visual materials. This implies taking contemporary art seriously on a practical level and being receptive to its processes of producing works and representing other realities. Doing so raises difficult questions about the status of the works produced, about the professionalism of the discipline, about training, and about audiences. Who is anthropology trying to address? …As anthropology continues to explore the existence of different visual cultures and ways of seeing it needs to simultaneously explore a wider range of strategies in gathering, producing, and exhibiting work. This will only be achieved through the development of new practices.” (p.25).