Join us to celebrate the last day of the Travelling Gallery exhibition Between Women: Franki Raffles, Sylvia Grace Borda, Sandra George, Carolyn Scott and Niu Weiyu (17–21 February 2025) for an event bringing together artists, curators and researchers whose work relates and responds to photographers and themes in the exhibition, with a focus on Sandra George and Franki Raffles, followed by a reception.
Friday 21 February 2025, 4.00-7.30pm Learning Loft, Wardlaw Museum, University of St Andrews, 7A The Scores, St Andrews, KY16 9AR. All welcome, no sign-up necessary. The Learning Loft has step-free access via a lift. Any queries, please email Catherine at: [email protected].
Before the event starts, there is the chance to view Between Women at the Travelling Gallery, which will be parked in the East Sands Leisure Centre Car Park (St Mary Street St Andrews, KY16 8LH) from 10am-4pm. There is also the opportunity to see the group exhibition Say No! Art, Activism and Feminist Refusal, which features Franki Raffles’s work and will be on display in the Wardlaw Museum from 10am-5pm.
4.00-4.10pm: Welcome and introduction (Catherine Spencer)
4.10-4.40pm: On curating Franki Raffles (1955-94) and Sandra George (1957-2013) Jenny Brownrigg
4.40-5.40pm: Artist responses to the practices and archives of Sandra George and Franki Raffles Christian Noelle Charles and Alicia Bruce
5.40-6.00pm: Comfort break; refreshments
6.00-6.45pm: Roundtable discussion on curating, cataloguing, researching and writing about Franki Raffles’s photographic archive Yanru Dong, Lydia Heeley, Weitian Liu, Alistair Scott
6.45-7.30pm: Drinks reception
Between Women takes images made by the photographer Franki Raffles from her base in Edinburgh during the 1980s and 1990s as a starting point to explore relationships between gender, labour, education, care and activism in documentary photography since the 1950s in Scotland and internationally. Raffles’ photographs will appear alongside images by Sylvia Grace Borda, Sandra George, Carolyn Scott and Niu Weiyu which together illuminate how gender is produced and reproduced through workplaces, housing, healthcare, and particularly schools, playgrounds and nurseries, across urban and rural landscapes. Together, these photographs highlight the possibilities for solidarity between women in sites and spaces spanning the local and the global, but also the importance of recognising differences and intersectional identities that account for the constructs of gender, sexuality, race, disability and class in activism and organising. The exhibition and programming have been organised by Vivian K. Sheng and Catherine Spencer, with support from the University of St Andrews Impact and Innovation Fund.
Jenny Brownrigg is Exhibitions Director at The Glasgow School of Art. She was curator of ‘Glean: early 2oth century women filmmakers and photographers in Scotland’, City Art Centre, Edinburgh (2022/3). Other curated exhibitions include ‘Sandra George’, as part of Glasgow International Festival (2024); and ‘Franki Raffles: Observing Women at Work’, in 2017 at Reid Gallery, The Glasgow School of Art.
Alicia Bruce is an award-winning working-class artist, photographer and activist. Her work bridges documentary and staged photography, co-authoring humane stories of people and places. Often inspired by art history, her practice engages with environmental issues, portraiture, human rights, feminism, participation and the politics of space. Bruce’s photographs are held in public collections, including the National Galleries of Scotland and the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), and St Andrews University. Awards include the RSA Morton Award, Lishui Photography Festival Expert Photographer Award, and a nomination for Prix Pictet 2025. Exhibitions include National Galleries of Scotland, Format Festival, VU (Quebec), Street Level Photoworks, Ffotogallery, Lishui Museum (China) & UK Parliament. Bruce’s commissioned work spans editorial and charitable campaigns for clients such as Harper’s Magazine, Zero Tolerance, and the NHS. In 2023, she appeared in the BBC documentary The Women Who Changed Modern Scotland discussing Zero Tolerance ‘Violence Unseen’ campaign. She is a Teaching Fellow at Edinburgh College of Art.
Christian Noelle Charles is a visual artist whose work explores identity, self-love, and community within the Black diaspora. Born in Syracuse, New York (1993), and based between Glasgow and New York, she holds an MFA from The Glasgow School of Art and a BFA from The Cooper Union. Her interdisciplinary practice spans screenprinting, video, and performance, blending Afro-diasporic music, dance, and rhythms to create immersive, multisensory experiences. Central to her work is the concept of deep self-reflection, encouraging audiences to confront personal and collective understandings of identity. Focused on themes of Black joy, resilience, and authenticity, her work challenges dominant narratives and celebrates the richness of Black identities. Charles’s career highlights include solo exhibitions at CCA Glasgow and Edinburgh Printmakers, group shows at the National Galleries of Scotland, and collections at GoMA Glasgow and the National Gallery of Scotland.
Yanru Dong researches gender, transnational networks, and materiality in 20th- and 21st-century art history, focusing on photography, mixed media, and video art. With a background in design and curation, she explores how Asian, Euro-American, and Asian diasporic women artists challenge power structures and reframe historical narratives. Yanru holds an MA in Art History from St Andrews and York, and a BA in Fashion Design from Donghua University. Her dissertation examines women’s labor in urban China through Franki Raffles’ photography. Her research has been selected for the Association for Art History 2025 Annual Conference session From Local to Global: Feminist Activism and Documentary Photography.
Lydia Heeley is The Bern and Ronny Schwartz Curator of Photography at The Bodleian Libraries. Previously, she was Assistant Curator of the Photographic Collection at the University of St Andrews.
Weitian Liu is a writer, editor, and art critic based in London. He completed an MPhil in the History of Photography at the University of St Andrews in 2020. Currently, he is a PhD researcher in the Advanced Practices programme at Goldsmiths, University of London. He co-edits Qilu Criticism. His writing has appeared in Qilu Criticism, ArtReview, Artforum China, among other publications.
Dr Alistair Scott is Associate Professor at Edinburgh Napier University. He moved to higher education after a career working in television. He first met Franki Raffles when they were both undergraduates at St Andrews University in the 1970s and remained friends until her death. In 2016 he initiated the ‘Franki Raffles Archive Research Project’ launching the website http://www.frankirafflesarchive.org and, together with her family, brought together Raffles’ entire photographic output for conservation at St Andrews University Library Special Collections.
Image credit: Franki Raffles, Propaganda wall, ‘Healthy babies, Healthy Children make China Strong’ with people on bicycles on the foreground, October 1984 – February 1985, digital scan from negative © Franki Raffles Estate, all rights reserved. Courtesy of the University of St Andrews Libraries and Museums and Edinburgh Napier University, ID: 2014-4-T-CT064.