Dr Sara Dominici
I am a historian of photography and visual culture with expertise in amateur photographic practices from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. I have taught at the University of Westminster since 2010, where I am currently a Senior Lecturer, the Course Leader for the MA in Art and Visual Culture (since 2017), and the Course co-Leader for the MA Museums, Galleries, and Contemporary Culture and the MA Museums, Galleries, and Contemporary Culture with Professional Experience (since 2022). I previously studied at La Sapienza University, Rome (Laurea quinquennale in Scienze della Comunicazione, 2004) and at the London College of Communication (FdA in Photojournalism, 2006), and hold an MA in Visual Culture (2010) and a PhD (2014) from the University of Westminster. I also previously worked as a photographer and photo editor in both commercial and non-profit organisations.
EXTERNAL POSITIONS:
(2022-2025) Peer Review College member, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
(2021-2023) Visiting Scholar, Photographic History Research Centre, De Montfort University (Leicester, UK)
My research interests focus on three main intertwined areas: amateur photographic cultures and related spaces of making; technologically-enhanced practices of mobility and vision; and photographers’ engagement with the infrastructures and networks of modernity. I am the author of Reading the Travel Image (Routledge, 2018) and of many articles on the relationship between photography and modern experiences of leisure.
My current research explores:
i) the relationship between amateur processes of making and the socio-cultural role of the darkroom. This is also the focus of Amateur Darkroom Practices, 1880s-1910s, a two-year WRDA funded project that combines performative research methods with the analysis of primary sources.
ii) the intertwined histories of camera technologies and forms of transport (i.e., trains, cycles, and the automobile), looking in particular at the role that ordinary experiences with technology played in the development of new leisure practices and ways of moving and seeing.