Brett Rogers OBE (born 1954) is director of The Photographers’ Gallery in London. She played a key role in establishing photography as a leading art form in the UK.[1] Prior to joining The Photographers’ Gallery, Rogers was the Deputy Director and Head of Exhibitions at the Visual Arts Department at the British Council.
England – In March, 2013, Emaho’s Editor-in-Chief Manik Katyal caught up with Brett Rogers, Curator of The Photographer’s Gallery in London, to unearth her global vision of photography.
Manik : Brett, you have been into curating for almost 30 years now. And you came from Australia. How did the process of curating begin for you?
Brett : In Australia during the 1970s I had to read at the University of Fine Arts because you couldn’t do any photography in those days. It was very very hard to find a place where one could study photography and research it. So in 1980 I decided to come to the UK to do my M.A. at The Courtauld Institute of London. When I arrived here I tried to investigate if there were any courses within The Courtauld that taught photography. Again nothing. In those days it was really very hard to find any taught M.A. courses in photography. So instead of doing something associated with photography, I did my thesis on surrealism and alluded to photography in my thesis. So I finished at The Courtauld, and previously I already had some experience working in Australia for four years, organizing exhibitions of art that toured the country.
Manik : As a curator?
Brett : Yes, I was very fortunate to be offered the first trainee exhibition officer job at the Australian Gallery Directors’ Council. They trained me for a year and I was sent around the world to work in places. I chose the places myself and I had to set it up all by myself. It was in the days when internships were quite rare, so I was quite unusual being this Australian girl at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington and the Guggenheim. In London, I worked at the British Council as an intern. I learnt some skills that way, and then I went back to Australia and did six months in Australian galleries. I worked for the Australian Gallery Director’s Council for 4 years and then came to Britain. Very fortunately, soon after my M.A. I got a job at the British Council where I stayed for 20 years.
Manik : How was photography back in the day in Australia and when you first came to Britain?
Brett : In Australia, it was exactly like here. In the 70s when I started working for the Australian Gallery Directors’ Council it was booming. We started doing photography exhibitions because they were easy to tour, affordable and they attracted huge audiences. We were part of the boom of interesting photography that happened in the 70s in England and here in Australia, which recognized that photography was an important art form. I was very fortunate that I already had some experience in curating shows in Australia by the time I got here.
