Katy Thornton's AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Project explores “The influence of contemporary culture on young combatants in West Africa (1989–2003), through the archives of ‘trans-media’ journalist Tim Hetherington”. This project is a partnership between IWM and Kings College London.
Utilising the archives of Tim Hetherington and other conflict photographers, along with interviews conducted during fieldwork, the project explores the hypothesis that the imagery of conflict offers a unique opportunity to gain a better understanding of how young combatants draw upon an array of visual cultures, both local and global, to create a performance.
By reframing the subject of a photograph as a co-creator and by adopting the thesis that seeing and being seen are social processes, this project asks what youth combatants may have been trying to communicate and to whom, and how this helps us to understand how they placed themselves in the world. Beyond her thesis, Katy has worked with the Tim Hetherington Collection, Conflict Imagery Research Network, supporting public engagement workshops with groups in Manchester, London and New York, and with the University of Leeds, has run a photo voice research project in Trafford Manchester exploring the concepts of conflict and space.
She has acted as a critical friend for the IWM Public Engagement and Learning team and has run a number of photographic research sessions with university students.