Rhonda Wilson MBE (17 August 1953 – 6 November 2014) was a women's activist, photographer, writer, editor, and educator in British contemporary photography, best known for her initiation of the Rhubarb-Rhubarb International Festival of the Image.
Biography Wilson was born in Birmingham on 17 August 1953 to parents Len and Daisy Wilson, and was the sole sibling of a brother, Clive. In the 1970s she was a trainee journalist with D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd. in Dundee, on Jackie magazine as a music editor, stylist, photographer and agony aunt.
Photographer, activist From 1980 in Birmingham Wilson was a freelance graphic designer and editor contributing to such publications as Insist: Birmingham Women Paper,Doughan, D., & Sanchez, D. (1987). Feminist periodicals, 1855-1984: An annotated critical bibliography of British, Irish, Commonwealth, and international titles. Washington Square, N.Y: New York University Press. and increasingly worked in photography. With Sue Green she conducted a series of women's photography workshops held in the Arts Lab at The Triangle, Gosta Green in the early eighties. She co-founded the women artists' group Feminsto in 1981,Jobling, P. (1997). Bodies of Experience: Gender and Identity in Women's Photography Since 1970. United Kingdom: Scarlet Press, pps.10,47,65 and campaigned against women's low pay and homelessness, exhibiting photo series including Worth Paying For commissioned by the West Midlands Low Pay Unit, The Age of the Elders on people from different cultures of the city ageing together, and From The Heart of the City, a group of 80 portraits of women.
As it did for Peter Kennard, the format of the poster combined Wilson's skills for political purpose; she was the author of a poster illustrated with a photograph by Richard Cross, for two photographic exhibitions Two Faces of War, of Central America by John Hoadland and Richard Cross, and Nicaragua by Susan Meiselas shown at the Triangle Photography Gallery 4 February-1 March 1986. Rough Justice was a set of six posters by Wilson published in 1987 by Birmingham City Council Womens Committee. Martha Rosler remarked of her work that; Some photographers reject "humanist" documentary, with its multiplicity of buried texts about powerlessness. Rhonda Wilson, of Birmingham, England, wittily staged images for her poster series on women and homelessness in England.Martha Rosler, "Images os Sites of Struggles," in Cullenberg, S., Callari, A., Biewener, C. (1995). Marxism in the Postmodern Age: Confronting the New World Order. United Kingdom: Guilford Publications, p.165
Wilson's career included involvement in Ten.8 magazine where, by 1984, she had joined the editorial board and was responsible for the Ten.8 Touring program of travelling exhibitions supported by West Midland Arts from 1986. She designed two of its issues; "Another Coal Face" (1984) and "Evidence" (1987). She and Roshini Kempadoo co-edited the Spectrum Women's Photography Festival exhibition catalogue, published as a special supplement to issue 30 of 1988.
Also in that year she had a retrospective at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, visited the Houston FotoFest portfolio reviews in the US that inspired her to set them up later in Britain, and was a presenter discussing "Enterprise/Photography/Culture: Is this the New Reality for Photography?", alongside Graham Budgett, Willie Doherty, Joy Gregory, Susan Hardy, Sylvia Harvey, David Hevey, Pervaise Khan, Eamonn McCabe, Gaby Porter, Juanito Waswhadi, Alan Sekula, and Deborah Willis at the National Photography Conference 21 to 23 July 1989 in Newcastle, a biennial event supported by the Arts Council.Advertisement, The Guardian, 17 Jul 1989, p.37
She undertook a Master of Arts in Photographic Theory at the University of Derby 1988 – 1990 and, in partnership with Ming de Nasty, in 1989 established the Poseurs Studio and Gallery in Birmingham's Balsall Heath area, hosting and assembling photographic exhibitions into the early 1990s. She and Ming de Nasty designed half-tone lineblock, black and purple posters in series A Sense of Place, addressing the subject of homeless women in Britain, based on an exhibition of photographs also entitled 'A Sense of Place', held at the National Museum of Film and Photography, Bradford, as part of the Spectrum Women's Photography Festival, 1989.
Wilson left Ten.8 in 1991, but was still listed as 'Editorial Advisor in 1992.Ten.8. (1992). United Kingdom: Sidelines (TEN.8). The magazine folded in 1993 due to the early 1990s recession.
Working internationally became integral to her photographic projects, developed as campaigns on social issues such as homeless women and unemployment which in the 1990s attracted the attention of overseas gallery curators, resulting in exhibitions in Europe, Australia and the USA. A Sense of Place, her series on women and homelessness, was seen in Bradford, London, Rotterdam, New York and Chicago. Invitations to speak at international photography conferences in Spain and Portugal and at an exhibition of her work in Finland resulted from interest in her working methods of this period in digitised images on CD-ROM and uploaded to overseas via the limited internet bandwidth then available.
Educator A part-time lecturer at the Nottingham Trent University for twelve years, and as a colleague of Max Kandhola who later joined the board of advisors for Seeing The Light and Rhubarb-Rhubarb photography agency, Wilson contributed to a transformative updating of the photography curriculum. She is remembered by Frede Spencer, a graduate of 1999 who founded the Twenty Twenty Agency, as;...a person who divided opinions, always challenging the status quo. As a lecturer she never felt part of the establishment but rather an equal, a peer. This lack of social hierarchy meant that as a student you had someone with immense experience talking with you and to you, rather than at you. There was a lovely childlike, almost anarchistic nature to Rhonda. She will be sorely missed by many – the world needs more people like her.Wilson's major innovation were the courses in Survival Strategies and Professional Practice for practitioners with an emphasis on entrepreneurship, presented by guest lecturers who were curators, photographers and agents. As Max Kandhola, then course leader of the BA (Hons) Photography programme, confirmed;Rhonda would pave the way forward with her inspired talks and focused insight into the business world of photography, there was always a vision and a journey, and there was no obstacle.
Birmingham Wilson was also devoted to serving the communities, and the promotion, of the city of Birmingham where she lived. In 1982 she worked on the September edition of Insist: Birmingham Women Paper, was involved with West Midland Arts,Bradley, Rachel, "Artist-led Culture in the West Midlands, Then: 1970-2008, in contributed to the Birmingham Photographic Heritage Project, established Poseurs Gallery in 1989,The British Journal of Photography. (1991). United Kingdom: H. GreenwoodCritical Decade: Black British Photography in the 80s. (1992). United Kingdom: Ten.8. and co-produced The People and the City exhibition to support Birmingham's bid for Capital of Culture, which was staged in London in 2008.
A year later she curated and produced the Obama's People exhibition at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery attended by over 100,000 visitors, Councillor Mike Whitby noting the aptness of Birmingham as a venue as the twin in city of Barack Obama's hometown, Chicago.
She hosted Rhubarb-Rhubarb International Festival of the Image held in Birmingham every summer at the Orange Studio, STL’s Festival partner. Her nominators for her MBE in the New Year's Honours of 2005 for her contribution to photography and international trade, UK Trade and Investment, based at the Birmingham Chamber of Industry, saw her as key in internationally profiling Birmingham and the West Midlands as a city and region of photographic creative excellence. Its Head of International Trade, BCI Jonathan Webber, and Doug Mahoney, International Trade Director for the West Midlands confirmed that: UK Trade and Investment and BCI have been working with Seeing The Light and its Director, Rhonda Wilson, on international trade for the past five years. This richly deserved honour reflects the success, dedication and sheer hard work Rhonda and her colleagues have undertaken. We are all very pleased and very, very proud.Roulla Xenides, "Birmingham Creative Awarded MBE," S&X Media Press Release, 30 December, 2005She assisted with the establishment in March 2005 of The Chameleon Gallery in Walsall, and opened Rhubarb East Gallery at 25 Heath Mill Lane, Birmingham in March 2010. With Christie's auction house and Mark Storor and Trevor Wornham, owners of a former silver factory in Hockley, Wilson organised a charity auction Wilson and Friends of photographs from the US, Sweden, France, Japan, Korea, California, London, Europe and the Midlands in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter to raise funds for Acorns Children's Hospice.
Seeing the Light