Max Houghton is a writer, curator and editor and is the Course Leader for the MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication.
With Fiona Rogers she co-edited Firecrackers: Female Photography Now, a photobook encompassing the work of multiple women or female-identifying photographers including the playful Juno Calypso, the stigma busting Haley Morris-Cafiero and the South African LGBT activist Zanele Muholi.
She has written monographs for books such as Anja Niemi’s ‘In Character’, Vanessa Winship’s ‘Sweet Nothings’ and Martin Usborne’s ‘Where the Hunting Dogs Rest’.
Max is a doctoral candidate for the School of Law at University College London. She is part of a LCC research collective including journalists, human rights lawyers and artists called ‘Visible Justice’ – representing the intersection of visual culture and social justice.
Why do you think writing on Photography is important?
I think of it - what I try to do at least - as writing with photographs. Image and text bring forth different kinds of knowledge. For me, all the magic happens in the space in-between.
Who is important to you in the critical field of writing on Photography?
There are lots of interesting contemporary writers - FOAM, 1000 Words and Cabinet are full of such great writing - but my main influences in thinking with photographs are W G Sebald and Foucault - dead white men, both, but radical thinkers, who saw the infinite possibility of the image/text in resurrecting invisible histories. Ariella Azoulay on spectatorship, Jacques Ranciere on politics and aesthetics and Nicholas Mirzoeff and Teju Cole on blind spots bring fascinating dimensions to the field. In the new field I am working in, between law and the image, I am grateful for the writing of Patricia J Williams, Peter Goodrich, Susan Schuppli and Eyal Weizman, among many, many others. However, it was the nature-writing of Robert Macfarlane and Nan Shepherd, plus the clarity of Rebecca Solnit, that almost literally opened my eyes.
What do you learn from your LCC Photography students?
So much! I learn most from their vulnerabilities and their commitment to what they do. In my current MA cohort, I have two physicists, a judge, an architect and a wounds nurse, among many others - their approach to creativity, and the profound knowledge they bring, is endlessly interesting to me. In addition, I have students from many countries. It’s been fascinating talking to students from China about my latest curatorial and research project - with the artist David Birkin - Visible Justice - to find out what they think about how justice is perceived here, and how it differs from thinking in their native countries.
What's been the legacy of the Firecrackers book? (exhibition, discourse, etc)
Ha! Well, hopefully the legacy is that women all over the world are making the most exciting work. This is the area to which I feel that we - the wondrous Fiona Rogers, founder of the Firecracker Platform, and I - are able to contribute towards a properly inclusive space within photography. We featured work by photographers like Aida Muluneh, Zanele Muholi, Haley Morris-Cafiero and Behnaz Babazadeh - all completely pushing the boundaries of who and what is seen. In our latest symposium at the Museum of Wales in January, we wanted to broaden to include other work that may exist in some marginalised space, and to open conversations on class and gender that are not exclusive to women at all. We had amazing presentations by Jo Coates on class and Bruno Ceschel on queer photography (as well as many others that day). We really want to create a Firecrackers II and to keep celebrating work that isn’t necessarily validated via the usual routes.
You are a public speaker (including Women in Focus: Documentary & Citizenship) - what do you gain from speaking and hearing others' points of view at conferences?
I try hard to actually have something to say. I don’t assume people would be interested - I’m not even a photographer, and the events I usually speak at are populated by them! Also, I wouldn’t achieve anything without a deadline - so whether that’s a writing deadline, or an invitation to speak, it forces me to channel my drifty thoughts into something with which people might want to engage. As for listening to others … listening is an important and underrated art. Jo Coates’ talk made me cry in Cardiff - which shows the power of face to face contact with other humans. I also get very bored and restless when people use the stage as a place to say how great they are and how important their work is. In general, I prefer dialogue to monologue (unless it’s Beckett ha ha). Do you think the photo book is important as a medium and who do you think is doing it well or reinventing it?
I really do - I wish it weren’t such a niche thing. If you think about children’s books as image texts, it seems strange that the adult book world does not include this genre for the most part - I think that’s why I fell in love with Sebald’s writing. I wasn’t looking for it, and I didn’t know it was missing. I read all the time as child - nothing fancy - and didn’t/still don’t draw or paint - but despite my whole life being based around words, it was Sebald’s image/texts that moved me like nothing else. Of course there are graphic novels - it’s a fantastic genre but just not to my particular taste (do appreciate Joe Sacco and Marjane Satrapi) – but I’m not sure why image/texts, or photobooks, are so restricted in their circulation. Photobooks can be very expensive of course, which is prohibitive for many. I am finding The Human Snapshot and The Flood of Rights, both published by LUMA/Sternberg Press, very valuable, as well as Picture Industry by Walead Beshty. My favourite ever photobook is The Sweet Flypaper of Life by Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes - it’s about all the things that matter, without saying that it is.