Online Course | Starting an Archive (2025)

Fascinating insight into the process and practice of Archiving, great prompts and questions around process and selection as well as very useful practical strategies in archiving.

Participant from 2024's Starting an Archive course

Thinking about starting your own archive?

Get to know the key areas to consider when setting up an archive. See examples of a range of archives and learn how archives have changed since the advent of the digital age.

Course Format

Over six weeks, this practical course explores what it means to archive material today – working with physical and/or digital material.

Course leader Kathryn Tollervey starts by exploring the need for an archive and who it is for.
Then we look at the processes of digitisation and preservation for both digital and physical material.
This is followed by a discussion on the digital solutions best for different types of collections as well as guidelines on cataloguing and metadata.
Throughout the course we focus on access and legacy of the archive.

Taking place weekly on Zoom, sessions include a blend of lectures and guest speaker presentations. Participants are provided with lecture slides and a list of resources for further study.

Confirmation of some guest speakers to come.

Who is this for?

Open to all, especially those who have inherited/been given a collection of materials and/or photographers who are interested in starting the process of archiving their material, whether of personal value or historical public interest.

By booking for this course you agree to our Terms & Conditions

Details on how to access the course will be confirmed upon registration. Please check your junk/spam folder if you haven't received an email response from TPG staff.

Course schedule

Speaker biographies

Weronika Kobylińska is an art historian, archivist, assistant professor at the Film School in Łódź, and president of the Archaeology of Photography Foundation. Guest professor at the Aleksander Brückner Centre for Polish Studies (2020) and postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen in 2022. Author of two books on the history of interwar photography and photographic practices of the 1950s and 1960s. Nominated for the Jan Długosz Award for one of the best historical books of 2022. Curator of exhibitions at institutions including the National Museum in Warsaw and Studio Gallery at the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw.

Lagos Studio Archives is a cultural heritage preservation project by artists Karl Ohiri (UK/NIG) and Riikka Kassinen (FIN/UK), consisting of thousands of film negatives documenting studio portraiture and vernacular photography from Lagos, Nigeria, from the 1970s to post millennium.The project started when Ohiri discovered that many archives were being destroyed, discarded and stored away in humid conditions by a generation of photographers who were part of a shift from analogue to digital photography.

The initiative’s main aims are to collect, preserve and present the imagery photographers that captured the style, humour and aspirations of everyday Lagosians. The project strives to give visibility to their practices, stories and contributions to Nigerian photographic history by making their work accessible for present and future generations.

Lagos Studio Archives has been exhibited internationally in venues such as Autograph Gallery, London (2024-2025), The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2023) and South London Gallery, London (2023). The project has been featured in notable publications and platforms that include The British Journal of Photography, BBC Africa, Colossal, The Guardian and WePresent.

Marysia Lewandowska is a London based artist who has been exploring the public functions of archives, museums and exhibitions, focusing on the missing voices of women. Projects include the Women’s Audio Archive (2009); It’s About Time (2019); Enthusiasts Archive (2019); Dismantling the Faculty of Law (2012); Artist-in-Residence at the Cosmic House, London resulting in a permanent sound installation (2022). Other projects include Welcome Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (2023) and Institutional Healing Kunsthalle Baden Baden (2020 – 2025) forthcoming publication. Marysia served as Professor at Konstfack, Stockholm (2002 – 2013) and is currently a member of Tate Modern Advisory Group.

Kathryn Tollervey is Archivist at The Photographers’ Gallery. She has twenty years’ experience working in photographic archives such as Foster + Partners (Norman Foster’s architectural studio, London) photographic & special collections archive, the Victorian high street photographer Edward Reeves’ Archive (Lewes) and the archives of celebrated American-photographer Lee Miller (Chiddingly).

A limited number of partial bursaries covering 50% of full course fees will be awarded on a first come, first served basis. Please apply on or after Thursday 12 June.

Applicants who wish to be considered for a partial bursary should submit a statement (max. 500 words) to learning@tpg.org.uk, outlining how Starting an Archive would contribute to their professional development. Successful applicants will be notified within a week of submission (on or after Thursday 12 June). 

We actively encourage applications from groups who are currently under-represented in the cultural sector in the UK. This includes people who identify as D/deaf, disabled* and neurodivergent; those with caring responsibilities; candidates from Black, Asian and ethnically diverse backgrounds; and arts and culture professionals, prioritising independent artists and freelancers.

*The Equality Act 2010 defines a disabled person as someone who has a physical or mental impairment, and the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. Sharing that you are disabled will not be used in any way in judging the quality of your application.