subscribe 0330 333 1113 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 4 April 2020 29
DANIEL MEADOWS
The book, Now and Then:
England 1970-2015,
ISBN 978-185124-533-8
is published by the
Bodleian Library. You
can buy it for £25 from
bodleianshop.co.ukwhole thing, but he also couldn’t
make sense of the collection.
From there, Daniel says he spent six
years making lists. ‘In the middle of
all that time, I was diagnosed,
which had the effect of me deciding
that I was going to stop teaching
full-time and devote all my energy
to getting my archive sorted,
because otherwise my whole life’s
work will have been meaningless.
The point of documentary work is
that you’re really making it for eyes
that are yet unborn,’ he explains
with poignancy.Serendipity
In 2015, the Library of Birmingham
came to take away all of the archive
to place into its brand new library,
and Daniel felt he could relax. But,
within months, it became clear that
funding problems were going to
become a big issue. ‘My archive had
been acquired, but it hadn’t been
accessioned, it hadn’t been mapped
onto their database. There was
nobody in their employment who
knew what was there because there
was no record of it. It disappeared
as though it had never existed, and,
if I wasn’t going to be around any
more, nobody would even know it
was there. I was desperate.’
Some time later, he was persuaded
to give a talk at the Sotheby’s
Institute. ‘I used to turn them
[talks] down all the time because
I haven’t the energy any more and
anyway I thought I might be dead
soon. But the woman from the
Institute was very persuasive.’ It
turned out to be serendipitous
occasion.
‘I didn’t know who was going to be
in the audience, but that night I got
wired up and had a bit of a rant
about what was happening in
libraries and what would happen to
my work. It turned out that in theaudience were a couple of grandees
from the world of photography
including Colin Ford, the founding
director of the National Science and
Media Museum (originally called
the National Museum of
Photography Film & Television) in
Bradford. I already knew him
because he was the director of the
National Museum of Wales. He
said, “Daniel, I’ve got one word for
you – Bodleian.” I had no idea how to
get into this bastion of the
establishment, but within six
months, Colin Ford had put me in
touch with Richard Ovenden,
Bodley’s Librarian, who set about
raising the funds to acquire it.’
Not only did they acquire the
archive, the Bodleian also hired
somebody to do the archiving,
which is now fully catalogued. A
listing of everything within the
archive can be searched online,
leading you to a shelf number – 20.6
metres of shelving in fact. Not
content with that, a book and an
exhibition was planned to celebrate
the acquisition, with both making
their appearance at the end of 2019.
Back to 2020, my afternoon at
Daniel’s house seems to have
evaporated. I arrived in daylight,
but as our conversation starts to
reach a conclusion, it’s dark outside
and we’re now sitting in almost
complete darkness. Having seen
Daniel’s work displayed in various
exhibitions over the years, I was sad
not to be able to make it to Oxford
in time to see it last year – but I’m
cheered to discover that next year
will see it displayed again as it goes
on tour. Details are yet to be
finalised, but there should be three
venues across the UK. We will of
course publish details closer to the
time here in AP so you can be sure
to catch what are guaranteed
to be fantastic exhibitions.Above: Florence
Alma Snoad,
photographed in
1974 (left) as part
of the Free
Photographic
Omnibus. In 1999
(right), Daniel
revisited several of
those he had shot
25 years previously
for his Now and
Then projectLeft: An image from
the free studio at
Greame Street,
197 2