Annebella Pollen

Annebella Pollen is a cultural historian researching art, craft, design, dress and photography. She is Professor of Visual and Material Culture, University of Brighton, UK, and author of Art Without Frontiers (2023); More than a Snapshot (2023; winner of a Design History Society writing prize); Nudism in a Cold Climate (2021); The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift (2015; winner of a Most Beautiful Swiss Book award); and Mass Photography (2015). With Ben Burbridge, she is co-editor of Photography Reframed: New Visions in Contemporary Photographic Culture (2018). With Charlotte Nicklas, she is co-editor of Dress History: New Directions in Theory and Practice (2015). Art without Frontiers: The Story of the British Council, Visual Arts and a Changing World "...a lively and comprehensive overview of the increasingly contested history of the [British Council's Visual Arts] department, diplomatically highlighting its rich and extraordinary journey over nine decades to promote British art abroad" Brett Rogers OBE, Director, The Photographers' Gallery, London "...a refreshingly intelligent cut through a long and complicated history... a great achievement, eminently readable, well illustrated and thoughtful" Henry Meyric Hughes, President of the International Association of Art Critics, Paris "...a fascinating account of the personalities, events and contexts that have shaped an organisation founded 90 years ago to enhance international cultural relations, an organisation whose work is as important today as it was in 1934" Beth Williamson, Studio International More than a Snapshot: A Visual History of Photo Wallets “It is fascinating to see the often discarded and unnoticed photo wallets focused upon as material objects of socio-cultural and political value. Pollen anchors them to a lived social history within a specific historical moment and gives insight into the culture and commerce of this period. This is a deceptively simple publication that in reality is more than a snapshot. ...It is a rich and deep publication that extends the social history of photography” Caroline Molloy, Source: The Photographic Review "The book is a visual feast and for some will be nostalgic and rekindle memories of waiting to collect prints from Boots. More than that it provides an insight in an important aspect of popular photography that was focused on the photographic industry’s business, marketing and economics. ...highly recommended" Michael Pritchard, The Photohistorian "I love that this book exists! Fantastic!" Robin Ince, broadcaster Nudism in a Cold Climate: The Visual Culture of Naturists in Mid-20th-Century Britain "Annebella Pollen is a brilliant archivist of a hidden Britain. This is a startling history of a British counterculture way before the Beatles' first LP. Nudism in a Cold Climate is clever, surprising and huge fun. Absolutely fascinating." Lee Hall, dramatist: Billy Elliot, The Pitmen Painters, Rocketman "Scrupulously researched and judiciously argued, Annebella Pollen's treasure trove of a book valiantly rescues British nudism and its photographic culture from the 'condescension of posterity'. This is popular history pursued with wit and insight." Ben Highmore, University of Sussex "A fascinating insight into the changing cultural climate in Britain over half a century. Through her choice of images and her engaging narrative, the author shines a light on a minority movement that in its own way reflected the broader prejudices in British culture, while also contributing to challenging outdated mores." Philip Carr-Gomm, author of A Brief History of Nakedness "...fascinating... an erudite, crisply written and intelligent survey of nudism in 20th century Britain" Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday "...fascinating... Her book, generously sprinkled with pictures of nudists leapfrogging or taking tea, as well as men flexing in budgie smugglers, reads like a no-nonsense academic thesis. Between the lines, though, a portrait of a hidden and bonkers Britain emerges and I couldn’t stop laughing." Roger Lewis, The Times The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians "Annebella Pollen’s The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift is a revelation. This scholarly book explores England’s most fascinating and forgotten youth movement. Through a detailed examination of the highways and byways of esoteric thought and alternative politics in the early 20th century, as well as plentiful photographs (many taken by a young Angus McBean, an active kinsman in the late 1920s), it reconstructs a radical moment lost to history, a future that never happened." Jon Savage, The Guardian "This is a beautiful and intriguing book that tells a fascinating story about a little-known form of alternative modernist design and craft practice. ...beautifully written, erudite, insightful and often witty" Fiona Hackney, Journal of Design History "Annebella Pollen’s The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians appeared alongside an exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, dedicated to the artefacts of the movement. Book and exhibition are brilliant pieces of work, setting the Kibbo Kift in a richer and more nuanced context than previous studies, and offering a critical celebration of an extraordinary episode in youth culture, design, dress and the evocation of English landscape." David Matless, Journal of Historical Geography "The Kibbo Kift’s story is lavishly represented here via sourced photographs that depict not only the group's meetings, rituals and communal exercises such as rambling, tree-climbing or parading, but also in their ephemera – a strange and wonderful collection of hand-carved items, flags, patches and symbols whose bold imagery and clean designs recall two art movements of a similar era, Futurism and Vorticism. The impressively researched accompanying text by Annebella Pollen, an academic specialising in the History Of Art & Design, elevates this study from being far more than an art book and places The Kibbo Kift in a broader social context." Ben Myers, Caught by the River "...well put together, informative and instructive... The format of the book is especially good at conveying the graphic nature of the kin's ceremonial equipment (for example, the flags and banners) and, indeed, he book's overall design (cover, typeface and so forth) is very much 'attuned' to its subject matter. Pollen has not attempted a philosophical or theoretical interrogation of the KK; instead she has written a thorough history, broken down into four sections: History, Culture, Spirit and Resurrection. In each the author draws out the many connections of the kin with other groups and ideas, perhaps most compellingly in the section on Spirit in relation to Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn." Plastique Fantastique, Visual Culture in Britain "A dissonant, disquieting collection of over 100 images - many of them previously unseen - accompany art and design historian Annebella Pollen's account of the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift... Pollen sets herself a difficult task in chronicling its hitherto neglected story. It is a challenge she meets with elegance and flair. ... Pollen is particularly good at unpacking the Kibbo Kift's extraordinary and often contradictory mixture of influences and characteristics: the revivalist and the hypermodern; the universalising and the exclusive; the attractive and the deeply off-putting. ...[A] full-blooded, pioneering history" Anna Neima, Review 31 Mass Photography: Collective Histories of Everyday Life "This is an excellent and highly original book that will become an important point of reference for anyone working on amateur photographic practices and mass photographic events. What makes this such an important piece of work is the way that it takes One Day for Life as a pretext to open up a huge array of issues and questions in amateur photography that go well beyond the case study at the heart of the text.’‘ Peter Buse, Kingston University "This is the first full-length book on mass-participation photographic projects. It is to be applauded not only for that but for its qualities of analysis and assessment, perspective and perception, and its sustained appraisal of this distinctive application of amateur practice." European Journal of Communication "The book’s substantive focus makes it particularly valuable for researchers and students interested in mass-participation projects and vernacular photography past and present. Nonetheless, Pollen’s nuanced and informed analysis of key themes has much to offer a broader constituency of researchers and students of visual culture. ...In Mass Photography, Pollen presents an illuminating study that grapples with the significance of mass-photography projects and that takes seriously amateur photography and the people who engage in it." Penny Tinkler, Visual Culture in Britain "Pollen persuasively argues that there is a rich tapestry of memories, identities and experiences to be found in mass-participation projects specifically and within photography practice more generally. The call from this book is clear and it resonates like the final crashing E-major chord of The Beatles song [A Day in the Life]. Ordinary practices should be celebrated and further explored. To ignore everyday experiences is to turn our back on our varied individual and collective histories." Eve Forrest, Source: The Photographic Review "thought-provoking ...the foundation for future research on vernacular photography. In a visual culture in which social, cultural, and commercial images are increasingly indistinguishable from one another and photographs inhabit multiple positions and perform a variety of tasks, this form of interdisciplinary approach to interpretation will provide a useful model." Photography & Culture