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Professor Gil Pasternak

Job: Professor of Photographic Cultures and Heritage

Faculty: Arts, Design and Humanities

School/department: School of Arts, Design and Architecture

Research group(s): Photographic History Research Centre

Address: 51Âţ»­, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH

T: n/a

E: gpasternak@dmu.ac.uk

W: /phrc

 

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Personal profile

Gil Pasternak is Professor of Photographic Cultures and Heritage in the Photographic History Research Centre (PHRC), leading the Photographic History MA Programme at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Alongside his role at 51Âţ»­, he is Europe and UK Editor of the peer-reviewed quarterly Photography & Culture and he sits on the Advisory Board of various cultural heritage organisations, including the Apna Heritage Archive of Black Country Visual Arts CIC and Derby Yaadaañ Archive at Derby Museums.

Combining political science, cultural history, and critical theory, Gil investigates intersections of photography with liberal-democratic politics, populism, and cultural heritage to evaluate the influence of photography on political thought, activities, and behaviour. Much of Gil’s research draws on his past professional experience as photojournalist, fine art photographer, and photography archivist, with his key publications focusing on deployments of domestic snapshots, family portraits and archival photographs in contexts such as post/digital heritage, Israeli society and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the histories of Polish Jewry from the interwar to the post-communist era.

Believing in the ability of Participatory Research (PR) and Action Research (AR) to improve social life, cultural diversity and inclusivity altogether, Gil has designed and delivered multiple photography based community engagement events on trans/national living heritage, which resulted in co-created outputs such as exhibitions and photobooks. His demonstrated commitment to international policies on inclusivity and diversity in cultural heritage practices has led to his appointment as specialist consultant for heritage grassroots organisations and government advisory committees in various countries across continents.

Most recently, Gil has served as Member of AHRC Peer Review College Academic & International (2020-present); Co-director of Ph: The Photography Research Network (2011-presesnt); Project Leader of the European Commission funded research project Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts (2018-21); Project Leader of the UKRI-funded research project Picturing Untold Migration Experiences: Punjabi Social Struggles and Everyday Life in the Black Country (2022); Project Leader of the Paul Mellon Centre funded research project The State of Cultural Diversity in British Photography: Artistic Literacy, Educational Access and Institutional Policies (2022); Visiting Professor in Vehbi KOÇ Ankara Studies Research Center at Koç University, Turkey (2020/21); and Senior Visiting Researcher and Collections Advisor at the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan (2021/22).

Gil has supervised several PhD students who are in successful professional careers and he welcomes PhD applications on topics such as photography and cultural heritage; photography in post/digital heritage; and photography and politics, with focus on the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or the Cold War.

Research group affiliations

Photographic History Research Centre

Co-director of Ph: The Photography Research Network

Founding member of the Photographic Histories in Central and Eastern Europe Research Network

Founding member of the DigiCONFLICT Research Consortium

Media Discourse Centre

Publications and outputs


  • dc.title: Exhibiting Ethnic Minorities, Democratizing History: Cold War Legacies and the Jews in Poland’s Visible Sphere dc.contributor.author: Pasternak, Gil; ZiÄ™tkiewicz, Marta dc.description.abstract: This book chapter explores how Soviet Cold War visual doctrines and their legacies have conditioned the appearance of Jews in Poland’s visible sphere of the Polish People’s Republic and during the emergence of the post-communist Third Polish Republic. It focuses on the effects of a 1994 crowed-sourced photography contest that culminated in an exhibition, a book, and a collection of over 7000 photographic records concerning Polish-Jewish visual and living heritage. While doing so, the chapter unravels the means which the Polish state employed during the communist era to control the representational visibility of ethnic minorities and secure an impression of Poland as a socially and politically homogenized country. Analyzing the sociocultural outcomes caused by the reintroduction of images of Jews into Poland’s post-communist visible sphere, the chapter highlights the role they have played in assisting Polish society to overcome Soviet Cold War definitions of Polish culture, collective memory, history and identity. dc.description: We would like to thank GoĹ‚da Tencer-Szurmiej and Ewa PaĹ‚uba for granting us access to the Shalom Foundation photographic archive. All the photographs from And I still See Their Faces printed in this chapter are taken from that archive and reproduced courtesy of GoĹ‚da Tencer-Szurmiej, General Director of the Shalom Foundation in Poland. We published another study about And I still See Their Faces under the title “Beyond the Familial Impulse: Domestic Photography and Sociocultural History in Post-communist Poland, 1989-1996,” in “Seeing Family,” eds. Jennifer Orpana and Sarah Parsons, special issue, Photography & Culture 10, no. 2 (2017): 121-145. For a Polish translation of our article on And I still See Their Faces see, “Subwersywna moc prywatnych kolekcji fotografii. Ĺ»ydzi w polskiej pamiÄ™ci zbiorowej po upadku komunizmu”, in Konteksty: Antropologia Kultury-Etnografia-Sztuka LXXI/3 (2017): 212-224.

  • dc.title: Jewish Dress Through Visual Sources: An Introduction dc.contributor.author: Pasternak, Gil; Bethke, Svenja dc.description.abstract: This introduction to the special issue “Jewish Dress Through Visual Sources” prompts engagement with visual sources to expand research into the role of dress in the history of perceived minority groups. Drawing on the example of the Jewish people as one of the longest-lasting oppressed groups in history, the text opens by discussing some of the ways in which dress has played a primary role in shaping the social status of Jewish individuals and communities. It then highlights the interconnection between perceptions of dress with its visual imagery. Foregrounding some of the means that imbue dress with social significance and cultural value, it points to the ability of visual sources to offer insights into conditions underrepresented by other types of historical registers. Special attention is given to photographic image-objects as products of a medium that has radically changed—and democratised to a certain degree—how people re/work their identities, and perceive those of others, through dress. After introducing the contributions to the special issue, the text reflects on how the study of dress through engagement with visual sources pertaining to minority groups can transcend existing research approaches and diversify the scope of dress, fashion, and cultural history alike. dc.description: This text and the special issue that it introduces are the outcome of the online workshop series Picturing Jewish Dress: Researching Belonging and Identification Through Historical Visual Sources, which we delivered between October and December 2020. We would like to thank all the workshop participants for their invaluable presentations and all the contributors to the special issue for their work, revisions, and cooperation. We are incredibly grateful to Catherine Harper, Editor-in-chief of TEXTILE: Cloth and Culture, for offering us the opportunity to guest-edit this special issue, and we also wish to use this opportunity to thank all of those who have given us permission to reproduce images from their archives and collections in the issue’s articles. Last but not least, we want to give our special thanks to all the scholars and academics who served on this issue’s board of peer reviewers. Although they must remain anonymous, we still thank them personally for the time they have taken to share with the authors their perceptive impressions, insightful comments, and constructive feedback. The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link

  • dc.title: Photographic Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts dc.contributor.author: Pasternak, Gil dc.description.abstract: This special issue of the journal Photography & Culture (volume 14, issue 3) calls for the development of research into the various local and global political circumstances that have influenced the absorption of historical photographs into the realm of digital heritage, alongside the study of the digital photographic heritagization practices triggered by this very process. Presenting case studies from Australia, Britain, Israel, Palestine, Russia and South Africa, it analyses how historical photographs, digital heritage, and cultural conflicts have become interlocked in multiple countries around the globe since the post-Cold War rising prevalence of digital technology, global interconnectedness, and liberal democracy. These related conditions, it is suggested, have informed the growing digital heritagization of historical photographs and the methods used for their digitization, safeguarding and dissemination. Therefore, as a whole, the special issue argues that the confluence of historical photographs and digital heritage must not be understood as a mere response to technological progress but as an articulation of politically-charged aspirations to capitalize on the common association of photographs with the past, to administer approaches to differing cultural values in a time of imposing liberal-democratic politics of consensus.

  • dc.title: Photographic Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts: A Critical Introduction dc.contributor.author: Pasternak, Gil dc.description.abstract: This introduction to the special issue “Photographic Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts” calls for the development of research into the various local and global political circumstances that have influenced the absorption of historical photographs into the realm of digital heritage, alongside the study of the digital photographic heritagization practices triggered by this very process. Opening with an exploration of the emergence of “the heritage phenomenon”, it analyses how photography, heritage, and the political arena have become interlocked. The discussion then considers how historical photographs, digital heritage, and cultural conflicts have subsequently also become entangled since the post-Cold War rising prevalence of digital technology, global interconnectedness, and liberal democracy. These related conditions, it is suggested, have informed the growing digital heritagization of historical photographs and the methods used for their digitization, safeguarding and dissemination. Before introducing the individual contributions to the issue, the text therefore argues that the confluence of historical photographs and digital heritage must not be understood as a mere response to technological progress but as an articulation of politically-charged aspirations to capitalize on the common association of photographs with the past, to administer approaches to differing cultural values in a time of imposing liberal-democratic politics of consensus. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.

  • dc.title: The National is Personal: Domestic Photographs in Israel’s Authorized Digital Heritage dc.contributor.author: Pasternak, Gil dc.description.abstract: This article explores the consequences of the digital heritagization of domestic photographs that the State of Israel has initiated as part of its aspiration to settle increasing tensions between traditional national values and modern identities in Israel’s Jewish hegemonic social sphere. The process has been realized through the implementation of the community-based crowdsourcing initiative Israel Revealed to the Eye. Launched in 2011, it was designed to identify valued expressions of perceived national heritage in the photographs kept in the households of Israeli citizens across the country, and incorporate them into a centralized database for their safeguarding, study and public deployment. The article opens with an investigation of the various circumstances that have officially led the state to consider domestic photographs as cultural resources of national significance. As well as examining whose heritage the digitized photographs effectively safeguard once absorbed into the database, it then analyzes how their collection through coordinated crowdsourcing activities has reconditioned definitions and understanding of national heritage in the country. In doing so, the article demonstrates that the digital heritagization of the photographs has assisted in mitigating citizens’ conflictual approaches to Israel’s national heritage without repressing contestations of the dominant cultural status quo. dc.description: The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.

  • dc.title: Photography in Transitioning European Communist and Post-Communist Histories dc.contributor.author: Pasternak, Gil dc.description.abstract: This is a special issue of the peer-reviewed academic journal Photography and Culture on photographic cultures in late- and post-communist Eastern Europe, edited by Gil Pasternak

  • dc.title: Visioning Israel-Palestine: Encounters at the Cultural Boundaries of Conflict dc.contributor.author: Pasternak, Gil dc.description.abstract: In this interdisciplinary book, a group of international authors strives to cultivate a better future for the people of Israel-Palestine through recognition of the part that cultural products have played in the duplication of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While this conflict is one of the longest-lasting struggles over land and human rights in recent history, politicians and the media have largely reduced it to a series of debates over historical facts and expressions of violence. Its persistence, however, has also led to the manufacture of cultural products that challenge understandings of the conflict as a fight between two distinct peoples unified against each other. Contributors to Visioning Israel-Palestine analyse the content of such products alongside the work that they do within Israel-Palestine and in the Jewish and Palestinian diasporas. They largely draw on the legacy of nonconformist intellectual Edward Said, who saw culture as a participant in the perpetuation of the conflict, as well as a vehicle capable of leading the way towards its just resolution. The chapters in the volume consider Israeli and Palestinian films, art installations, street exhibitions, photographs and oral histories to expand the conflict's historical imagination and nurture suitable cultural conditions to revitalise the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. dc.description: The book was published as part of the series New Encounters: Arts, Cultures, Concepts edited by Griselda Pollock

  • dc.title: At Home with "Palestine": Performing Historical Photographs of the West Bank in Israeli Households dc.contributor.author: Pasternak, Gil dc.description.abstract: This chapter offers insights into the multiple roles played by photography in the sociocultural embodiment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Looking into the emergence of photographic cultures in Israel of the post-1967 war period, it focuses on the participation of photographs that Jewish-Israelis captured within the West Bank in performances and celebrations of Israel’s 1967 war victory. Jewish-Israelis started flooding into this territory only a week after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war ended. Commonly carrying cameras, they subsequently took photographs in spaces that had just returned to accommodating more prosaic activities than armed conflict. Drawing on archival research and ethnographic work with local participants, the chapter demonstrates that the photographs that Jewish-Israeli citizens captured in the West Bank of that period informed their understanding of Israel’s claimed right to this territory alongside their perception of its Palestinian residents. Portraying the lives that the photographs have lived in the Jewish-Israeli household since that time, it argues that they helped Jewish-Israeli citizens cement their perceived historical relationship to the West Bank at the same time as they reassured the itinerants, their friends and families that their morality was intact, the situation in the country safe and their relationship with the Palestinians affable. dc.description: Some of the research activities undertaken towards the completion of this study were carried out as part of the project Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts (DigiCONFLICT) that received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 699523 (Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage), implemented in the United Kingdom by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) under Project Ref AH/S000119/1. I am grateful to all the individuals and families who welcomed me to their homes with open arms and enabled me to explore their photographic collections, together as well as independently. Their kindness, generosity, open mind and sincere cooperation were fundamental to my ability to develop the multiple layers of this study.

  • dc.title: Encounters at the Cultural Boundaries of Conflict dc.contributor.author: Pasternak, Gil dc.description.abstract: This chapter explores the significance of cultural production to the realities and enactment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It demonstrates how tangible and intangible cultural products made by Israelis, Palestinians and others have determined what aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have become visible and known, where, how and also to whom. Part of the text explains how scholarly literature on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has traditionally revolved around the so-called national and Marxist historiographical paradigms, studying (contested) national histories and endeavours, on the one hand, and critically analysing issues concerning social, economic and political sovereignty, on the other. Assessing the implications and the risks involved in focusing on national aspects and criticism alone, the chapter promotes the importance of cultural products as research sources that allow us to attend to issues of relevance to individual, social and political diversity. It suggests that in conceptualising cultural products this way, we will be able to access realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that go beyond its formal national and state politics, and open up subsequently posibilities to expand its historical imagination and pave the way towards inter-national dialogue in which each party can recognise the emotional and practical needs of the other with greater empathy.

  • dc.title: The Handbook of Photography Studies dc.contributor.author: Pasternak, Gil dc.description.abstract: A state-of-the-art overview of the field, The Handbook of Photography Studies examines the thematic interests, dynamic research methodologies and multiple scholarly directions of this exciting area. It is a source of well-informed, analytical and reflective discussions of all the main subjects that photography scholars have been concerned with, as well as a rigorous study of the field’s persistent expansion at a time when digital technology regularly boosts our exposure to new and historical photographs alike. Featuring the work of international experts, and offering diverse examples, insights and discussions of the field’s rich historiography, the Handbook provides critical guidance to the most recent research in photography studies. Split into five core parts, each with an introductory text that gives historical contextualization and scholarly orientation, this volume: • analyzes the field’s histories, theories and research strategies; • discusses photography in academic disciplinary and interdisciplinary contexts; • draws out the main concerns of photographic scholarship; • interrogates photography’s cultural and geopolitical influences; and • examines photography’s multiple uses and continued changing faces. A systematic synopsis of the subject, this volume will be an invaluable resource for photography researchers and students from all disciplinary backgrounds in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

Key research outputs

Pasternak Gil and Svenja Bethke. 2023. Jewish Dress Through Historical Visual Sources: An Introduction. In Gil Pasternak and Svenja Bethke, eds. "Jewish Dress Through Historical Visual Sources" (Special Issue). TEXTILE: Cloth and Culture 21(3): 561-570.

Pasternak, Gil and Svenja Bethke, eds. 2023. "Jewish Dress Through Historical Visual Sources" (Special Issue). TEXTILE: Cloth and Culture 21(3).

Pasternak, Gil and Marta Ziętkiewicz. 2023. Exhibiting Ethnic Minorities, Democratizing History: Cold War Legacies and the Jews in Poland’s Visible Sphere. In Erina Duganne, Andrea Noble and Thy Phu, eds. Cold War Camera, 327-358. Durham, NC.: Duke University Press.

Pasternak, Gil, Ewa Manikowska and Malin Thor Tureby. 2022. Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts: An Introduction. In Ewa Manikowska, Gil Pasternak and Malin Thor Tureby, eds. "Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts" (Special Issue). Culture Unbound 14(2): 1-10.

Pasternak, Gil, Ewa Manikowska and Malin Thor Tureby, eds. 2022. "Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts" (Special Issue). Culture Unbound 14(2).

Pasternak, Gil. 2021. The National is Personal: Domestic Photographs in Israel’s Authorized Digital Heritage. In, Gil Pasternak, ed. "Photographic Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts" (Special Issue). Photography & Culture 14(3): 339-370.

Pasternak, Gil. 2021. Photographic Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts: A Critical Introduction. In, Gil Pasternak, ed. "Photographic Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts" (Special Issue). Photography & Culture 14(3): 253-268.

Pasternak, Gil, ed. 2021. "Photographic Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts" (Special Issue). Photography & Culture 14(3).

Pasternak, Gil. 2021. Everyday Photographs and the Archive in the Age of Institutionalised Digitisation. KONTRAST 55(1), Special Issue: Simply, Ordinary: 142-150 (published in Turkish by Ankara Fotoğraf Sanatçıları Derneği - AFSAD).

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Collecting Digital Designs: Reasons, Definitions, Challenges, and Implications (Natalie Kane talks to Gil Pasternak). In Ewa Manikowska, Gil Pasternak and Malin Thor Tureby, eds. "Cultural Heritage and Technology" (Special Issue). Santander Art and Culture Law Review 6(2): 25-32.

Pasternak, Gil, Ewa Manikowska and Malin Thor Tureby, eds. 2020. "Cultural Heritage and Technology" (Special Issue). Santander Art and Culture Law Review 6(2).

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. How Can Our Family Photographs Help Safeguard the Heritage of Our Community?. Hedim/The Voice 58: 74-81 (Hebrew), 85-93 (English).

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Remembering, Commemorating, Diversifying: Private Photographs and Communal History in the Age of Digital Heritage. In Geoff Broadway, ed. Living Memory: Life Stories and Photography Collections, 348-357. London: Independent Publishing Network.

Pasternak, Gil, Barbara Czyznikowska and Miriam Levene, eds. 2020. Recovering Connections: Poles, Jews and Our Interrelated Cultural Heritage. London: Independent Publishing Network.

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. At Home with "Palestine": Performing Historical Photographs of the West Bank in Israeli Households. In Gil Pasternak, ed. Visioning Israel-Palestine: Encounters at the Cultural Boundaries of Conflict, 210-243. London & New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Introduction: Encounters at the Cultural Boundaries of Conflict. In Gil Pasternak, ed. Visioning Israel-Palestine: Encounters at the Cultural Boundaries of Conflict, 1-24. London & New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

Pasternak, Gil, ed. 2020. Visioning Israel-Palestine: Encounters at the Cultural Boundaries of Conflict. London & New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts.

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Politics and Photography: Being Together, With Photographs. In Gil Pasternak, ed. The Handbook of Photography Studies, 214-234. London & New York: Bloomsbury Publishing / Routledge.

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Introduction: Photography Studies’ Prehistory, Formation and Evolution. In Gil Pasternak, ed. The Handbook of Photography Studies, 1-17. London & New York: Bloomsbury Publishing / Routledge.

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Studying Photography in Shifting Academic Landscapes. In Gil Pasternak, ed. The Handbook of Photography Studies, 21-25. London & New York: Bloomsbury Publishing / Routledge.

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Disciplining Photography and Reframing Disciplinary Interests. In Gil Pasternak, ed. The Handbook of Photography Studies, 117-121. London & New York: Bloomsbury Publishing / Routledge.

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Enduring Concerns in Photography Studies. In Gil Pasternak, ed. The Handbook of Photography Studies, 209-213. London & New York: Bloomsbury Publishing / Routledge.

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Global and Local Forces in Photography Studies. In Gil Pasternak, ed. The Handbook of Photography Studies, 329-334. London & New York: Bloomsbury Publishing / Routledge.

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Photography’s Changing Faces. In Gil Pasternak, ed. The Handbook of Photography Studies, 451-455. London & New York: Bloomsbury Publishing / Routledge.

Pasternak, Gil, ed. 2020. The Handbook of Photography Studies. London & New York: Bloomsbury Publishing / Routledge.

Pasternak, Gil. 2020. Book review for Melissa Miles’ Photography, Truth and Reconciliation (London: Bloomsbury, 2019). Published by Burlington Contemporary, contemporary.burlington.org.uk.

Pasternak, Gil and Marta Ziętkiewicz. 2019. Haunting Legacies: Family and Archival Photographs in Aleksandra Garlicka’s Taxonomy of Polish Society (1985–95). In, Gil Pasternak, ed. "Photography in Transitioning European Communist and Post-Communist Histories" (Special Issue). Photography & Culture 12(2): 171-201.

Pasternak, Gil. 2019. Introduction: Photography in Transitioning European Communist and Post-Communist Histories. In, Gil Pasternak, ed. "Photography in Transitioning European Communist and Post-Communist Histories" (Special Issue). Photography & Culture 12(2): 139-149.

Pasternak, Gil, ed. 2019. "Photography in Transitioning European Communist and Post-Communist Histories" (Special Issue). Photography & Culture 12(2).

Pasternak, Gil and Marta Ziętkiewicz. 2019. Making a Home in Poland: Photographic Education and Practices in the Landkentnish Movement. IMAGES: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture 12(1): 151-179.

Pasternak, Gil. 2018. Popular Photographic Cultures in Photography Studies. In, Benedict Burbridge and Annebella Pollen, eds. Photography Reframed: New Visions in Contemporary Photographic Culture, 39-47. London & New York: I. B. Tauris.

Pasternak, Gil. 2017. „Diabeł z Zachodu” i „szatan ze Wschodu”. Refleksja badawcza nad fotografią wobec przemian we współczesnej nauce. In, Marta Ziętkiewicz and Małgorzata Biernacka, eds. Odkrywanie «Peryferii». Historie fotografii w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej. 23-42. Warszawa: Liber pro Arte (Polish).

Pasternak, Gil and Marta Ziętkiewicz. 2017. Mieć w Polsce ojczyznę. Fotografia w działalności żydowskiego ruchu krajoznawczego (1923-1939). In, Marta Ziętkiewicz and Małgorzata Biernacka, eds. Odkrywanie «Peryferii». Historie fotografii w Europie Środkowo-Wschodniej. 103-134. Warszawa: Liber pro Arte (Polish).

Pasternak, Gil and Marta Ziętkiewicz. 2017. Subwersywna moc prywatnych kolekcji fotografii. Żydzi w polskiej pamięci zbiorowej po upadku komunizmu. Konteksty: Antropologia Kultury-Etnografia-Sztuka LXXI(3): 212-224 (Polish).

Pasternak, Gil and Marta Ziętkiewicz. 2017. Beyond the Familial Impulse: Domestic Photography and Sociocultural History in Post-Communist Poland, 1989-1996. Photography & Culture 10(2), Special Issue: Seeing Family: 121-145.

Pasternak, Gil. 2016. Book review for Wendy Kozol’s Distant Wars Visible: The Ambivalence of Witnessing (Minnapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014). Published by College Art Association, caa.reviews.org.

Pasternak, Gil. 2015. Taking Snapshots, Living the Picture: The Kodak Company's Making of Photographic Biography. Life Writing 12(4), Special Issue: Self-regarding: Looking at Photos in Life Writing: 431-446.

Pasternak, Gil. 2014. Intimate Conflicts: Foregrounding the Radical Politics of Family Photographs. In, Sheehan, Tanya, ed. Photography, History, Difference, 217-239. University Press of New England.

Pasternak, Gil. 2014. Book review for Ali Behdad and Luke Gartlan's Photography's Orientalism: New Essays on Colonial Representation (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute, 2013). Published in Visual Studies 29(2): 226–227.

Pasternak, Gil. 2014. Photographic Histories, Actualities, Potentialities: Amateur Photography as Photographic Historiography. In, Pollen, Annebella and Juliet Baillie, eds. Reconsidering Amateur Photography. As part of Either/And, Online commissioned essay series for the National Media Museum.

Pasternak, Gil. 2013. Poročanje o grozotah: Družinske fotografije v izraelskih reportažah o terorizmu. Fotografija 55, 56: 52–58 (Slovenian).

Pasternak, Gil. 2013. Book review for Ariella Azoulay’s Civil Imagination: A Political Ontology (New York: Verso, 2013). Published by College Art Association, caa.reviews.org.

Pasternak, Gil. 2013. Récits d’un territoire (Ground Narratives). In Shoshan, Assaf, Territoires de l’attente (Waiting Territories), 67–71 (French), 71–76 (English). Paris: Diaphane éditions.

Pasternak, Gil. 2013. ‘The Brownies in Palestina’: Politicizing geographies in family photographs. Photography and Culture 6(1): 41–64.

Pasternak, Gil. 2013. Future Backgrounds. Huddersfield Art Gallery, UK (Solo exhibition; photographic installation).

Pasternak, Gil. 2011. Playing Soldiers: Posing Militarism in the Domestic Sphere. In, Paul Fox and Gil Pasternak, eds. Visual Conflicts: On the Formation of Political Memory in the History of Art and Visual Cultures, 139–168. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Pasternak, Gil and Paul Fox. 2011. Introduction: Images of Conflict. In, Paul Fox and Gil Pasternak, eds. Visual Conflicts: On the Formation of Political Memory in Art History and Visual Cultures, 1–15. New Castle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Pasternak, Gil and Paul Fox, eds. 2011. Visual Conflicts: On the Formation of Political Memory in Art History and Visual Cultures. New Castle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Pasternak, Gil. 2010. Posthumous interruptions: the political life of family photographs in Israeli military cemeteries. Photography and Culture 3(1): 41–64.

Pasternak, Gil. 2009. Covering horror: family photographs in Israeli reportage on terrorism. Object: Graduate Research and Reviews in the History of Art and Visual Culture 11: 87–104.

Pasternak, Gil and Jo Melvin. 2007. Like Water in Water. In, Nature Trails. Gallery:Space at the McKenzie Pavilion, UK (video installation).

Pasternak, Gil et al. 2005. Radio Goya. In, EAST International. Norwich Gallery, UK (international exhibition by nomination; multimedia installation).

Pasternak, Gil et al. 2005. Food Eating. CHELSEA Space, UK (performance).

Pasternak, Gil. Untitled (2003). 2005. In, Tonight We Are Golden. ICA, London, UK (screening; photographic stop-motion video art).

Pasternak, Gil. 2005. Slim and Stutter. In, Signs of the Time. Gallery Infra, Sweden (international exhibition; photographic installation).

Pasternak, Gil et al. 2004. Untitled. Tate Modern Gallery, UK (solo exhibition, invited by Bloomberg; interactive photographic installation).

Pasternak, Gil et al. 2004. Only You. In, The Social Universe. I Miss You. Whitechapel Gallery, UK (screening; video art).

Pasternak, Gil. 2004. Slim and Stutter. In, Objective Delight. Kodeljevo Grad, Slovenia (international exhibition; photographic installation).

Pasternak, Gil. 2003. Dispersion. In, Annual Exhibition of Print. Machida Municipal Museum of Print, Japan (international exhibition; multi-print photographic composition).

Pasternak, Gil. 2003. Untitled (Digital Drawings 2002/3). In, MutinyBounty. FLU Gallery, Serbia (international exhibition; installation of digital drawings).

Pasternak, Gil. 2003. Untitled (Digital Drawings 2002/3). MutinyBounty. The Agency Contemporary, UK (international exhibition; installation of digital drawings).

Pasternak, Gil. 2003. Untitled (2003). In, park ‘n’ ride. S1 Artspace, UK (screening; photographic stop-motion video art).

Argaman, Yosef, ed. and Gil Pasternak, photographer. 2000. These are the sites … 100 locations of Hagana activities. Tel Aviv: MOD Publishing House (historical text-photography monograph).

Ziv, Hanni and Yoav Gelber, with photographs by Gil Pasternak et al. 1998. The Bow Bearers. Tel Aviv: MOD Publishing House.

Research interests/expertise

Gil is particularly interested in photographs that circulate in the social domain but that, despite their ubiquity, do not normally get organised public exposure or are not placed in archives or any other institutional collections. In this respect, he considers his research as a means to record their presence, material form and presentation, their meaning to those who take and collect them in the present, and what particular socio-cultural needs and functions they are said to fulfil.

In 2018, Gil secured a large research grant of over £500,000 to lead the project 'Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts'. Exploring the production, dissemination and exploitation of digital heritage in nationally defined zones of cultural conflict, the project takes particular interest in multimedia museums, in born-digital and digitised oral histories, and in born-digital and digitised photographs. It is carried out through the collaborative research activities of the international, interdisciplinary DigiCONFLICT Research Consortium (51Âţ»­, UK; Liber pro Arte, Poland; Linköping University, Sweden), and the grant was awarded by the Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage (JPICH), funded by the European Commission (Horizon 2020).

In addition to his work on digital heritage, Gil has worked and published on political photographic practices in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the Arab-Israeli wars, Israeli national security, nationalised private collections, and the administration of Israeli-Palestinian landscapes. Exploring synergies between private photographic practices, curatorial tendencies, and historical realities, he has also published on the photographic cultures developed by minority groups in Poland (in particular Jewish) during the Second Polish Republic, (1918-1939), the Polish People’s Republic (1947-1989), and since the foundation of the Third Polish Republic (1989-present). Other publications revolve around photographic historiography (canonical, social, cultural and “vernacular”), the photographic industry’s tacit influence on private and amateur photographic practices (mainly Kodak), the making and nationalisation of photographic autobiographies, everyday photography and photographs in everyday living.

Based in the Faculty of Social & Historical Sciences at University College London (UCL), Gil studied for his PhD at the History of Art Department, where he specialised in histories, theories and practices of nationally framed socio-political photographic cultures. Prior to his appointment at 51Âţ»­, he was Senior Lecturer in Photography and Photography Course Leader at the School of Art, Design and Architecture, the University of Huddersfield (2009-2013), Teaching Fellow History of Art at UCL (2007-2010), and Associate Lecturer Art History and Theory at Chelsea College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London (2006-2010).

Earlier in his career he worked as a photojournalist and a war photographer in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and in South Lebanon. He also practiced fine art photography and presented my work in a number of art galleries, including Tate Modern (one-day installation), Norwich Art Gallery, The Agency, the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Machida Municipal Print Museum (Tokyo), Kodeljevo Grad (Slovenia), and Gallery Infra (Sweden). Although he no longer practices photography in the context of fine art or reportage, he is still interested in the historical development of these practices, as well as in the theoretical frameworks that they generally generate in the broader field of photography studies.

Areas of teaching

  • History and theory of photography
  • Vernacular histories of photography
  • Photographic ethnographies
  • Photographic historiography
  • Photography and art history, contemporary art, and visual cultures
  • Visual sociology and visual anthropology
  • Research methods
  • Visual methodologies
  • Visual Histories

Qualifications

  • PgCert in Ph.D. Supervision
  • Ph.D. in History of Art, History of Art Department, University College London
  • MA in Fine Art Media (Distinction), Slade School of Fine Art, University College London
  • BFA in Photography (First), Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem

Courses taught

  • Photographic History MA
  • BA(Hons) Photography, the University of Huddersfield
  • MA Digital Media Design (Photography path), the University of Huddersfield
  • BA/MA History of Art, University College London
  • BA/MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design

Honours and awards

Senior Visiting Researcher and Collections Advisor, State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation (2021-22).

Visiting Professor, Vehbi KOÇ Ankara Studies Research Center at Koç University, Turkey (2020-21).

Membership of external committees

Member of AHRC Peer Review College - Academic & International (1 Jan 2020- 31 Dec 2023).

Member of the Advisory Board of the Apna Heritage Archive (Black Country Visual Arts; 2018-Present).

Membership of professional associations and societies

I am co-director of Ph: Photography Research Network and have been a member of the following associations and societies:
  • International Communication Association (ICA)
  • Association of Art Historians (AAH)
  • College Art Association (CAA)
  • Association of Photography in Higher Education (APHE)
  • Association for Historical and Fine Art Photography (AHFAP)
  • Fellow British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP)
  • Fellow Higher Education Academy (HEA)

Conference attendance

Recent keynote and plenary lectures include:

18 October 2023. "Politics of a Field: Photography Studies and Its Indignations". In, The Present-Future of Photographic Studies, organised by Formes actuelles de l'expérience photographique at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Alberta (Canada), 18-19 October 2023.

5 April 2022. "Activating the Heritage Database: Digital Pasts in the Postdigital Present". In, Local Memory Studies Certification Program (CPD for Museum and Culture Professionals), organised by Vehbi Koç Ankara Studies Research Center (VEKAM) at Koç University, Ankara (Turkey).

11 March 2021, "Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts". In the conference Digital Technology and Heritage: Challenges and Issues, organised by the French National Research Agency (Agence Nationale de la Recherche – ANR) and the French Ministry of Culture, online, 11-12 March 2021.

6 December 2019, "At Home with 'Palestine': Performing Historical Photographs of the West Bank in Israeli Households". In the conference Photography as a Tool of Representation of Political Violence in the 20th Century, organised by the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Gagarin Center for Human Rights and Civil Society at St-Petersburg State University, St-Petersburg (Russia), 6 December 2019.

31 October 2019, "Photography Studies: Transitioning and Enduring Concerns in the Expanding Field". In the two-day symposium Interpreting Photography, organised by Vehbi Koç Ankara Studies Research Center (VEKAM) in partnership with Ankara Photography Association (AFSAD) at Koç University, Ankara (Turkey), 31 October-1 November 2019.

24 May 2019, "Photography in Politics: Remembering and Being Together, With Photographs". In the 5th international annual conference After Post-Photography, European University in St Petersburg, Russia, 23-25 May 2019.

5 September 2018, "Online Communities Offline: Digital Heritage in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict". In the international, interdisciplinary symposium Commemoration, Memory, Archive: Investigating Commemorative and Memorial Uses of Personal, Non-Professional Images in the Digital Age in the Global South, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, University of Sussex, UK, 4-5 September 2018.

19 May 2017, "Dominant Participants and Active Producers: Popular Photographic Cultures in Photography Studies". In the international conference, After Post Photography, European University in St Petersburg, Russia, 18-20 May 2017.

31 May 2016, "'The Devil of the West' and 'the Satan of the East': Studying Photography in Shifting Academic Landscapes". In the international conference, Discovering "Peripheries": Photographic Histories in Central and Eastern Europe, Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland, Warsaw, 31 May – 1 June 2016.

Consultancy work

Derby Museums: Advisory Board Member for Derby Yaadaañ Archive (2023/24).

State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation: Senior Visiting Researcher and Collections Advisor (2021/22).

Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, FWF): Proposal Evaluator.

Collaborative Research Actions Scheme, University of Liège, Belgium: Proposal Evaluator.

National Science Centre, Poland (Narodowe Centrum Nauki – NCN): Proposal Evaluator.

AHRC Midlands3Cities (M3C) Consortium: Proposal Evaluator and Evaluations Panelist.

Black Country Visual Arts (BCVA): member of the advisory board; adviser on digitisation methodology, archival practice, and the cultivation of participatory culture, in particular for the Apna Heritage Archive project (2018-present).

Nikon Corporation (European marketing team): adviser and content generation for Nikon’s 100th Anniversary celebrations (2017).

BBC Arts: publication entitled Five game-changing cameras that turned us into photographers, in association with the film Smile! The Nation’s Family Album for which I served as a consultant (2017).

BBC Factual: provided expert advice for a film production on safety and accessibility of family photography albums in the digital age (2017).

BBC Four: consultant for Smile! The Nation’s Family Album (2016/17).

Nikon Corporation (European marketing team): adviser for the annual Nikon Photo Contest International (2014/15).

Polish Ministry of Higher Education: adviser for the project Photography in the Humanities (Miejsce fotografii w badaniach humanistycznych), funded by the Ministry (2015/16).

Israel Science Foundation: Proposal Evaluator

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO, the Dutch Research Council): Proposal Evaluator

Czech Science Foundation: Proposal Evaluator

External Examiner positions held to date:

2013-2017 External Examiner, BA(hons) Photographic Arts, University of Westminster, London.

2013-2015 External Examiner, BA(hons) Photography and BA(hons) Filmmaking, Kingston University, London.

2013-2015 External Assessor for new academic programmes, Teesside University, UK.

* I am at present available to act as External Examiner.

Current research students

  • Victoria Shaw, Conflicting Place-based Pasts: Reconciling Institutional and Community Photographic Heritage in the Midlands (1st supervisor; ongoing).

 

  • Emma Hyde, Photographic Digitisation in UK Heritage Archives: A History of Staff Skills and Collection Integrity (1st supervisor; ongoing).

 

  • Javed Sultan, Reshaping News Photography in Postcolonial India: S. Paul’s Photographic Contributions to the Social Democratisation of the Independent State, 1950s-1970s (1st supervisor; ongoing).

 

  • Peter Cheese, From Silver to Silicon (2nd supervisor; ongoing).

 

  • Jaime Davis, We Interrupt This Programme: Co-citizenship and Curatorial Practices in the Delivery of News and Visual Journalism (2nd supervisor; ongoing).

 

Completions

 

First Supervisor:

 

  • Michelle Hamers, Visual Voyage of Palestine Refugees: The Social and Political Life of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency's Photo Archive (1st supervisor; completed in 2022).

 

  • Sabrina Meneghini, Classroom Photographic Journeys: Alfred Hugh Fisher and the British Empire’s Development of Colonial-era Visual Education (1st supervisor; completed in 2021).

 

  • Catherine Troiano, A National Complex: Institutional photography in after-post-communist Hungary, 2006-2018 (1st supervisor; completed in 2020).

 

  • Ben Tree, Photography’s World: Transnational Photography Books in the Postwar Period (1950-1970) (1st supervisor; completed in 2017).

 

 

Second supervisor:

 

 

  • Valentine Nyamndon, Manufacturing a Subversive Reality: Backdrops and Photographic Manipulations in Cameroonian studio Photography (2nd supervisor; completed in 2023).

 

  • Marta Binazzi, All Rights Reserved: Copyright and Patent Laws’ Impact on the Commercialisation of Permanent Photographs of Artworks in Europe, 1865-1900 (2nd supervisor; completed in 2020).

Externally funded research grants information

  • 2022: Project Leader, "The State of Cultural Diversity in British Photography: Artistic Literacy, Educational Access and Institutional Policies", Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, £500.
  • 2022: Project Leader and Principal Investigator, "Picturing Untold Migration Experiences: Punjabi Social Struggles and Everyday Life in the Black Country", UKRI Participatory Research Funding, £2,177.
  • 2018: Project Leader for "Digital Heritage in Cultural Conflicts", a 36-month large-grant research project of €569,585 (approx. £504,000), carried out by the international, interdisciplinary DigiCONFLICT research consortium (51Âţ»­ - UK; Society Liber pro Arte - Poland; and Linköping University - Sweden). The grant was awarded by Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage (JPICH) and is funded by the European Commission (Horizon 2020).
  • 2009: AHRC, Collaborative Research Training Scheme, £700.
  • 2005: AHRC, Collaborative Research Training Scheme, £500.
  • 2005: Art Projects Award. British Council of Arts, approx. £1,500.
  • 2004: Adrian Carruthers Award. Acme & Adrian Carruthers Memorial Fund, approx. £8,000.

Internally funded research project information

"Distilling the Photographic Mass: Photography and Digital Heritage at the National Trust". 51Âţ»­ Doctoral College Scholarship. Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) with the National Trust, start date: October 2021. First Supervisor. Approximate value: £60,327.

"The Legacy of Alfred Hugh Fisher and the Colonial Office Visual Instruction Committee". 51Âţ»­ Doctoral College Scholarship. Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) with the Royal Commonwealth Society Department at Cambridge University Library (University of Cambridge), start date: October 2017. First Supervisor. Approximate value: £56,109.

Professional esteem indicators

  • Advisory Board Member for Derby Yaadaañ Archive, a community based archive created for Derby's South Asian community at Derby Museums, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (2023-24).
  • Community engagemnet advisor for "Narrating our Village Through its Objects", a research-based cultural heritage project and site-specific exhibition at Palia Sagiada (Greece), co-funded by local philanthropists and the Filiates Municipality in Thesprotia (2022).
  • Curatorial advisor for the street exhibition "Formation of a Culture: Places and the People of Ankara", funded by the Turkish Ministry of Culture & Tourism (2022).
  • Senior Visiting Researcher and Collections Advisor at the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation (2021/22).
  • Visiting Professor in Vehbi KOÇ Ankara Studies Research Center at Koç University, Turkey (2020/21)
  • Member of AHRC Peer Review College - Academic & International (2020-23)
  • Invited to deliver a masterclass, "Writing the History of Photography: Between the Global and the Local" as part of the fourth meeting of Foto lasīšanas grupa / Photo Reading Group, Riga (Latvia, 24 March 2020).
  • Invited to deliver a keynote lecture on the range of interpretive research methodologies used by photography scholars in the early twenty-first century, as part of the two-day symposium Interpreting Photography, organised by Vehbi Koc Ankara Studies Research Center (VEKAM) in partnership with Ankara Photography Association (AFSAD), at Koc University, Ankara (Turkey, 31 October–1 November 2019).
  • Invited to deliver a research paper on some of the challenging questions about photographic cultural heritage preservation and the creation of community photographic digital heritage faced by communities of suffering, as part of the international, interdisciplinary workshop: Photography of Victims: Interpretations, Methods & Multi-Directional Memory. University of Nottingham (UK, 21-22 June 2019).
  • Invited to deliver a keynote lecture on photographically constructed memories in politics as part of the 5th international annual conference After Post-Photography. European University in St Petersburg (Russia, 23-25 May 2019).
  • Interviewee for an article on the revival in film photography in the digital age, published in BBC News Northern Ireland. "The 90-year-old camera still producing silver snaps", written by Robin Sheeran (18 May 2019):
  • Interviewee for an article on the benefits of children education through photographic practice, published in The Independent. "Kenyan children find a passion for photography thanks to growing charity", written by Will Worley (13 March 2019):
  • Invited to deliver a public talk on film photography in a digital world, and contribute to a related panel discussion at the AA School, as part of the event "Slow Seeing: The Analog in Photography", part of the AA Collections Talks series (UK, 18 February 2019).
  • Invited to deliver a research paper on the photographic methods that the Poland‑based Landkentnish (Yiddish for “knowing the land”) movement employed in the interwar period to preserve Jewish Heritage, promote Jewish culture, and establish Poland as a home for the Jewish people, as part of the international, interdisciplinary symposium: Photography and Resistance: Reflections on Photography as a Medium of Resistance and as a Resistant Medium. University of Brighton (UK, 29-30 January 2019).
  • Black Country Visual Arts (BCVA): member of the advisory board; adviser on digitisation methodology, archival practice, and the cultivation of participatory culture, in particular for the Apna Heritage Archive project (2018-present).
  • Invited to deliver a keynote lecture on digital heritage in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as part of the international, interdisciplinary symposium: Commemoration, Memory, Archive: Investigating Commemorative and Memorial Uses of Personal, Non-Professional Images in the Digital Age in the Global South. University of Sussex (UK, 5 September 2018).
  • Interviewee for an article on SmugMug's purchase of Flickr, published in Sputnik News. "'Photography More Important Than Ever' But Can SmugMug Make Flickr Profitable?" (25 May 2018):
  • Invited to deliver a research paper on Israel's popular photographic cultures of the post-1967 war period, as part of the conference: Visual Histories of Occupation (part of the research project Cultures of Occupation in Twentieth Century Asia - COTCA). The University of Nottingham (23 June 2017).
  • Invited to deliver a public talk on the making of photographs into memories, stories and narratives at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg (Russia, 23 May 2017).
  • Invited to deliver a keynote lecture on photographic historiographies and research methodologies, as part of the international conference: After Post Photography. The European University in St Petersburg (Russia, 19 May 2017).
  • Invited by BBC Arts to publish a piece entitled Five game-changing cameras that turned us into photographers, in association with the BBC Four film Smile! The Nation’s Family Album for which I served as a consultant (2017).
  • Consultant for the BBC Four film Smile! The Nation’s Family Album (2016/17).
  • Adviser and interviewee for an article on the return of instant analogue photography, published in BBVA OpenMind (online bilingual Spanish/English journal on science and innovation published by the banking foundation BBVA). Javier Yanes, “The Return of Instant Photography” (21 February 2017).
  • Adviser and interviewee for an article on uses of analogue photography, published in the weekly Spanish magazine 20 minutos. Javier Yanes, “Cinco razones para regresar a la fotografía analógica” (19 February 2017).
  • Adviser and source for information for an article on cemeteries in Israel and occupied regions with reference to photographs in commemoration practices, published in Leben & Tod article (German magazine on quality of life). Vanessa Köneke, “Krieg der Friedhöfe” (“War of cemeteries”), issue 1 (2017): 36-44.
  • Interviewed for The Telegraph of 4 August 2016, “What your family photo collection says about you”, by Lucy Mangan:
  • Invited to deliver a keynote lecture on photographic historiographies, research methodologies, and ethnographies, as part of the international conference: Discovering "Peripheries": Photographic Histories in Central and Eastern Europe. Society Liber pro arte in collaboration with the Polish Association of Photography Historians and the journal Dagerotyp. Institute of Arts at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw (2016).
  • Adviser for the project “Photography in the Humanities” (Miejsce fotografii w badaniach humanistycznych), funded by the Polish Ministry of Higher Education.
  • Commissioned to provide Nikon Corporation with historical and cultural analysis of amateur photographs, to help promote the Annual Nikon Photo Contest International in the European market.
  • Invited curator for FOTOGRAFIA – Festival Internazionale di Roma (International Photography Festival of Rome), Marco Gallery of Contemporary Art, Rome (2014-2015).
  • Proposal Evaluator for Israel Science Foundation.
  • Proposal Evaluator for The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO, the Dutch Research Council).
  • Proposal Evaluator for National Science Centre, Poland (Narodowe Centrum Nauki – NCN).
  • Proposal Evaluator for Collaborative Research Actions Scheme, University of Liège (Belgium).
  • Proposal Evaluator for Czech Science Foundation.
  • Proposal Evaluator for Austrian Science Fund (Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, FWF).
  • Member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Photography & Culture (Taylor & Francis).
  • Member of the Editorial Advisory Board for EP (Sternberg Press).
  • Member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Jewish Film & New Media (Wayne State University Press).
  • Peer reviewer for the journal History of Photography (Taylor & Francis).
  • Peer reviewer for the journal of Media, War & Conflict (SAGE).
  • Peer reviewer for Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication (Brill).
  • Peer reviewer for the journal Australian Feminist Studies (Taylor & Francis).
  • Peer reviewer for the journal Photography & Culture (Taylor & Francis).
  • Peer reviewer for the journal Jewish Film & New Media (Wayne State University Press).
  • Peer reviewer for the Journal of Cultural Geography (Taylor & Francis).
  • Peer reviewer for the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Photography Committee.
  • Peer reviewer for TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies (York University, Toronto).
  • Peer reviewer for The International Journal of the Image (Common Ground).
  • Peer reviewer for Open Arts Journal.
  • Peer reviewer for Object: UCL Graduate Research and Reviews in the History of Art and Visual Culture (University College London).

Case studies

Invited to develop and deliver a policy brief for the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation, "Establishing a purposeful photographic fonds" (January 2022).

Invited to deliver a masterclass, "Writing the History of Photography: Between the Global and the Local" as part of the fourth meeting of Foto lasīšanas grupa / Photo Reading Group, Riga (Latvia, 24 March 2020).

Invited to deliver a keynote lecture on the range of interpretive research methodologies used by photography scholars in the early twenty-first century, as part of the two-day symposium Interpreting Photography, organised by Vehbi Koc Ankara Studies Research Center (VEKAM) in partnership with Ankara Photography Association (AFSAD), at Koc University, Ankara (Turkey, 31 October–1 November 2019.

Invited to deliver a research paper on some of the challenging questions about photographic cultural heritage preservation and the creation of community photographic digital heritage faced by communities of suffering, as part of the international, interdisciplinary workshop: Photography of Victims: Interpretations, Methods & Multi-Directional Memory. University of Nottingham (UK, 21-22 June 2019).

Invited to deliver a keynote lecture on photographically constructed memories in politics, as part of the 5th international annual conference After Post-Photography. European University in St Petersburg (Russia, 23-25 May 2019).

Interviewee for an article on the revival in film photography in the digital age, published in BBC News Northern Ireland. "The 90-year-old camera still producing silver snaps", written by Robin Sheeran (18 May 2019):

Interviewee for an article on the benefits of children education through photographic practice, published in The Independent. "Kenyan children find a passion for photography thanks to growing charity", written by Will Worley (13 March 2019):

Invited to deliver a public talk on film photography in a digital world, and contribute to a related panel discussion at the AA School, as part of the event "Slow Seeing: The Analog in Photography", part of the AA Collections Talks series (UK, 18 February 2019).

Invited to deliver a research paper on the photographic methods that the Poland‑based Landkentnish (Yiddish for “knowing the land”) movement employed in the interwar period to preserve Jewish Heritage, promote Jewish culture, and establish Poland as a home for the Jewish people, as part of the international, interdisciplinary symposium: Photography and Resistance: Reflections on Photography as a Medium of Resistance and as a Resistant Medium. University of Brighton (UK, 29-30 January 2019).

Black Country Visual Arts (BCVA): member of the advisory board; adviser on digitisation methodology, archival practice, and the cultivation of participatory culture, in particular for the Apna Heritage Archive project (2018-present).

Invited to deliver a keynote lecture on digital heritage in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as part of the international, interdisciplinary symposium: Commemoration, Memory, Archive: Investigating Commemorative and Memorial Uses of Personal, Non-Professional Images in the Digital Age in the Global South. University of Sussex (UK, 5 September 2018).

Interviewee for an article on SmugMug's purchase of Flickr, published in Sputnik News. "'Photography More Important Than Ever' But Can SmugMug Make Flickr Profitable?" (25 May 2018):

Nikon Corporation (European marketing team): adviser and content generation for Nikon’s 100th Anniversary celebrations (2017).

Invited to deliver a research paper on Israel's popular photographic cultures of the post-1967 war period, as part of the conference: Visual Histories of Occupation (part of the research project Cultures of Occupation in Twentieth Century Asia - COTCA). The University of Nottingham (23 June 2017).

Invited to deliver a public talk on the making of photographs into memories, stories and narratives at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg (Russia, 23 May 2017).

Invited to deliver a keynote lecture on photographic historiographies and research methodologies, as part of the international conference: After Post Photography (18-20 May 2017). The European University in St Petersburg (Russia, 19 May 2017).

Invited by BBC Arts to publish a piece entitled Five game-changing cameras that turned us into photographers, in association with the BBC Four film Smile! The Nation’s Family Album for which I served as a consultant (2017).

Consultant for the BBC Four film Smile! The Nation’s Family Album (2016/17).

Adviser and interviewee for an article on the return of instant analogue photography, published in BBVA OpenMind (online bilingual Spanish/English journal on science and innovation published by the banking foundation BBVA). Javier Yanes, “The Return of Instant Photography” (21 February 2017).

Adviser and interviewee for an article on uses of analogue photography, published in the weekly Spanish magazine 20 minutos. Javier Yanes, “Cinco razones para regresar a la fotografía analógica” (19 February 2017).

Adviser and source for information for an article on cemeteries in Israel and occupied regions with reference to photographs in commemoration practices, published in Leben & Tod article (German magazine on quality of life). Vanessa Köneke, “Krieg der Friedhöfe” (“War of cemeteries”), issue 1 (2017): 36-44.

Interviewed for The Telegraph of 4 August 2016, “What your family photo collection says about you”, by Lucy Mangan:

Invited to deliver a keynote lecture on photographic historiographies, research methodologies, and ethnographies, as part of the international conference: Discovering "Peripheries": Photographic Histories in Central and Eastern Europe. Society Liber pro Arte in collaboration with the Polish Association of Photography Historians and the journal Dagerotyp. Institute of Arts at the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw (2016).

Invited to deliver a talk on my recent ethnographic reserach on domestic photographs from the West Bank. Institute of Social & Cultural Anthropology, Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford (20 November 2015).

Commissioned to provide Nikon Corporation with historical and cultural analysis of amateur photographs, to help promote the annual Nikon Photo Contest International in the European market.

Invited curator for FOTOGRAFIA – Festival Internazionale di Roma (International Photography Festival of Rome), Marco Gallery of Contemporary Art, Rome (2014-2015).

Invited to deliver a public talk on amateur photographic practices and DIY photographic processes. Wakefield Camera Club (16 June 2014).

Invited to hold an 'in-conversation' with Quentin Bajac, the New York Museum of Modern Art Chief Curator of Photography. The French Academy in Rome, Villa Medici (23 May 2014).

Invited to deliver a public talk on the Otolith Group’s Nervus Rerum and Ursula Biemann’s X-Mission. The University of Leeds in collaboration with Pavilion Arts Organisation (19 November 2012).

Invited to deliver a public talk on family photographs of victims of politically-motivated violent attacks in Israeli newspapers, as part of the conference: Urban Encounters: The Image of Public Space. Tate Britain, London (6 October 2012).

Invited to deliver a public talk on the historically radical conventions of family photography. The Musée Nicephore Niepce, Chalon sur Saône, France (3 October 2012).

Invited to deliver an academic presentation on photographic imagery of the Middle East in the context of visual communication and globalisation. Institute of Communications Studies, the University of Leeds (19 September 2012).

Invited to deliver a public talk on the historiography and politics of family photography. The Photographers’ Gallery, London (18 September 2012).

Quoted in a Jewish Telegraph article on visual culture of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle following my co-organization of an international conference on the subject. David Saffer, “Jewish Attitudes in Diaspora Won’t Change the Knesset” (15 June 2012: 13).

Invited to deliver a public talk on visual artist Yael Bartana’s early video pieces. Leeds Art Gallery, in collaboration with Pavilion Arts Organisation (6 June 2012).

Invited to deliver a public talk on the use of family photography in Israel, in the context of national identity and militarism. The Photographers’ Gallery, London (20 September 2011).

Invited to deliver an academic presentation on family photo-portraits of Israeli soldiers, as part of the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies’ Postgraduate Seminar. University College London (9 December 2009).

Invited to deliver an academic presentation on the subversive power of family photographs. Chelsea College of Art and Design, London (13 May 2009).

Invited to deliver a public talk on Israeli photo-reportage on politically-motivated attacks against civil targets. The Courtauld Institute of Art, London (11 March 2009).

ORCID iD

Gil Pasternak Gil-Pasternak-Handbook_of_Photography_Studiesgil-pasternak-vip-cover-imgGPasternak-Special-Issue