Qissa: It says on your website that Fast Forward Photography started with a panel discussion at Tate Modern. Did the panel discussion spark the idea for the project, or was the panel discussion the first step in the project? If the former, what was the panel discussion about?

Anna Fox: The panel discussion was the first step in the project. The project was sparked by a conversation between myself and Professor Karen Knorr. We were discussing the fact that there was still a lack of visibility of women photographers in the professional world despite the fact that we had almost 100% women photography students in our classes. Head of School at University for the Creative Arts, Sarah Jeans, supported the project and brought funding to pay for Maria Kapajeva to join the team initially as the Project Researcher. (Maria has gone on to become Fast Forward Project Manager). Myself, Karen and Sarah approached Tate Modern to invite them to collaborate and this is how the symposium happened. It was oversubscribed immediately, and the discussion led to the formation of the first conference at Tate Modern in 2015.

Qissa: Can you talk a little about storytelling within photography? As a medium, do you think stories are more evident within the works than, say, painting or sculpture?

AF: Photography, like film, has innate story telling capabilities and possibilities. Its indexical nature lends it a particular weight in terms of telling tales about peoples’ lives, as well its accessibility for a wide range of audiences also assists in making it readable to mass audiences across borders.

Maria Kapajeva: There is not much point in comparing different mediums within the arts: each has its own way to tell the stories and often it is rather a coalition of a few mediums in one outcome, an artwork, for instance.

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