Professor Paul Lowe
Title
Reader
College
London College of Communication
Email address
Tags
Researcher Research
Biography
Paul is the Course Director of the Masters Programme in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. He was responsible for the development and launch of a new part-time mode of the course delivered entirely online using web conferencing, blogs and the VLE, launched in 2008.Paul is an award-winning photographer, whose work is represented by Panos Pictures, and who has been published in Time, Newsweek, Life, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Observer and The Independent amongst others. He has covered breaking news the world over, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela’s release, famine in Africa, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and the destruction of Grozny.
I am a consultant to the VII foundation and Academy on online education of professional photojournalists in the majority world. His book, Bosnians, documenting 10 years of the war and post-war situation in Bosnia, was published in April 2005 by Saqi books. He regularly contributes to international and national conferences in Photography, Media and Education, and has published chapters in edited books on these themes as well.
My main research interests lies in two areas, photojournalism and documentary photography and e learning.
I am particularly interested in the relationship of photography and conflict, the effect of photojournalism on public discourse, and in the role communities of practice play in postgraduate and distance education. I am currently working on research around the ethics of representations of suffering, especially around the concept of bearing witness to trauma, and also on the materiality of the photograph.
I have written and researched extensively on the photographic documentation of Genocide and War Crimes, in particular the Liberation of the Concentration Camps in 1945, and the conflict in the Former Yugoslavia. My practice as a photographer is also related to these themes, my most recent body of work being a series of portraits of Rescuers, people who saved others during the genocide in Bosnia.
Grants and awards
(Figures indicate amount awarded to UAL)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council, Art and reconciliation - open calls and the living museum: innovation, research and the historical museum of Bosnia and Hercegovina, £5,047.91, (2019-2020)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council, Art and Reconciliation: Conflict, Culture and Community, £153,956.80, (2016-2018)
- Joint Information Systems Committee, NAM JISC, £69,108.00, (2011-2013)
- Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Picturing Pain: the role of photography in the representation of conflict
- Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), Europe in the World, £173.50
Research Outputs
Art/Design item
- Lowe P. Bosnians (2005)
Article
Book
- Lowe P. A Chronology of Photography (2018)
- . (2017)
- Good J, Lowe P. Understanding Photojournalism (2017)
- Lowe P, Good J, Bush L. 1001 Photographs to see before you die (2017)
- Lowe P. Photography Masterclass:Creative Techniques of 100 master photographers (2016)
Book Section
- Lowe P. The Forensic Turn: Bearing Witness and the Thingness of the Photograph (2014)
- Good J, Lowe P, Lardinois B, Williams V. Mythologizing the Vietnam War - Introduction (2014)
- Lowe P. The Forensic Turn: Bearing Witness and the Thingness of the Photograph. (2014)
- Lowe P. Picturing the perpetrator (2012)
- Lowe P. Introduction in the Book, 'Burke and Norfolk: Photographs from the War in Afghanistan' (2011)
- Lowe P, Blythman M. Blogs and the e-Flective Practitioner. Professional, not Confessional (2009)
Conference, Symposium or Workshop item
- Williams V, Pollard J, Lowe P, Lardinois B. Considering Vietnam (2012)
- Lowe P, Pollard J. Landscapes of Conflict: A one-day symposium on photographers responding to modern warfare. (2011)
- Lowe P. Bearing Witness conference paper, Photography and Conflict Conference, UCD Dublin May 2011 (2011)
Report
Show/Exhibition
- Williams V, Lowe P. Ožiljak (Scar): Photographs by Paul Lowe from the siege of Sarajevo (2015)
- Lowe P. The Forensic Turn (2015)
- Lowe P. Collateral Damage (2011)
- Davidmann S, Lowe P, Hunter T, Moore D, Skelton P, Sutherland P. Photography and the archive research centre core members exhibition (2011)
- Lowe P. Antiphotojournalism (2010)
- Lowe P. Rescuers (2009)
- Lowe P. Bosnians - Solo Touring Exhibition, 2005-7 (2007)
Thesis
Teaching
Current research students
- Jessie Bond, Conflict and the Photobook: Designing a space to better communicate conflict (Joint supervisor)
- Julia Colleen Johnson, How can participatory methodologies be most beneficially used in peer-led therapeutic environments? (Lead supervisor)
- Manuel Prazeres Coelho De Sousa, Statements of the self: ethics and contemporary documentary practice (Lead supervisor)
- Claudius Schulze, How can computerized research be utilized to aid the investigation process underpinning a documentary photography project? Documenting the societal changes caused by the economic crisis in Europe. (Lead supervisor)
- Claudius Schulze, How can computerized research be utilized to aid the investigation process underpinning a documentary photography project? Documenting the societal changes caused by the economic crisis in Europe.' (Joint supervisor)
- Abdulwahab Tahhan, Data from the Debris: Problematizing the contested narratives of the conflict in Syria (Joint supervisor)
- Abdul Tahnan, 'Undocumented Civilian Casualties: Comparing The Reporting of Civilians Casualties Caused by Russia Warplanes in Aleppo and by The US-Led Coalition Warplanes and Artillery in Raqqa.' (Joint supervisor)
- Vera Zurbrügg, The Admission of Gild. Material interventions into the role of Nazi gold in Switzerland's historical memory (Lead supervisor)