Heather Norris Nicholson
Current post and research

I joined the Manchester Centre for Regional History in 2005 as a part-time Research Fellow and since then I having been working with the moving imagery collections at the North West Film Archive. My research focuses upon amateur film practices and cultures within Britain , c.1927- 1977, explores links between leisure, society and the development of non-professional interests in cinematography and makes extensive use of home movies made and shown by amateur enthusiasts from the North West . Interviews, cine society histories and written texts together with detailed analysis of film footage form the basis for this first monograph on Britain ’s amateur film movement. British Academy funding in 2007 supported a detailed survey of hobby literature, especially specialist magazines. Material from the NWFA also forms the basis of a study of Manchester ’s links with Russia during the Soviet era, as viewed through amateur travel films and other footage that records a number of civic, educational and other links during the interwar and post war years.

Research on promotional films made for Cunard-White Star, during the shipping company’s transition from regular passenger services to recreational transatlantic travel was awarded a Prix de Quebec in 2006. Funding also supported research in the National Library and Archives, Ottawa, so that footage and associated material held at the NWFA and in Canada may further our understanding of tourism routes links between Liverpool and Eastern Canada during the interwar years. The project, Moving Memories and Acts of Relocation explores the changing constitution of meanings as amateur films, particular those made for family viewing, move from private into virtual and digital archival settings and journey outwards into a variety of public and educational spaces. Related presentations include Association of Moving Image Archivists ( Anchorage , 2006) the AHRC Cine, Space and Memory Workshop (The Herbert Media Centre, Coventry , Jan. 2007), Future Histories of the Moving Image ( University of Sunderland, Nov. 2007) and Amateur images: valorisation and manipulation ( Luxembourg , Jan. 2008).

The NWFA’s recent acquisition of an extensive film collection by Sam Hanna, an amateur filmmaker and former teacher from Burnley , Lancashire is the starting point for collaborative and inter-disciplinary work (from late 2007). The project seeks to involve various partners and to combine academic research with community outreach via schools and museums. I examine socio-cultural, historical, environmental and landscape-related change in relation to the interpretation of visual and material evidence within British and international contexts. Issues of identity, authority, memory and belonging thread through writings that range from French historical urban planning and conservation, to cultural tourism, museology and film-making by Canada ’s First Nations.

My work on amateur film seeks to situate an overlooked aspect of Britain ’s cinematic history within wider patterns of place identity, societal relations, leisure trends and patterns of middle class cultural consumption between c.1925 and 1977. Representations of childhood and family holidays as well as documentary-style forays into rural and urban occupational settings, social deprivation and charitable outreach, ethnography, and conflict zones are related variously to issues of memory, sense of place and authority. Research on interwar tourism history and other travel-related imagery produced by British cine enthusiasts in contrasting Mediterranean and contributions to television received funding the British Academy and Krasna-Krausz Foundation, and output included contributing to Nation on Film (BBC1/4, 2006-7).

SELECTIVE PUBLICATIONS (since 2001)

Film-related writings include:

Books

(in progress,2008) Visual Pleasures: Britain ’s amateur film movement, leisure and society c.1925 -1927 (Manchester University Press)

(2003) Screening Culture: Constructing Image and Identity, Rowman and Littlefield/ Lexington Books)

Chapters

(2008), Floating hotels: cruise holidays and amateur film-making in the inter-war period in Clarke, D., Doel, M., and Crawford Pfannhauser, V., (eds.) Moving Pictures/Stopping Places: Hotels & Motels on Film, (Wallflower Press)

(2008) Framing the view: amateur filmmaking and Britain ’s amateur film movement c. 1925-1950 in Craven, I. (ed.) Movies on Home Ground: Explorations in Amateur Cinema (Cambridge Scholars Press).

(2007) Authority, aesthetics and visions of the work place in home movies, in Ishizuka, K and Zimmerman, P. (eds.) Mining the Home Movie: Excavations into Historical and Cultural Memories (University of California Press), 438- 461

(2006) Sites of Meaning: picturing Mediterranean and other landscapes in British home movies, c. 1928-1965, in Lefebvre, M. (ed.) Film and Landscape (Routledge) 167-188

(2002) Telling travellers’ tales: framing the world in home movies, c.1935 - 1967, in Cresswell, T. and Dixon , D. (eds.) Engaging Film: Geographies of Mobility and Identity. (Lexington/Rowman & Littlefield) 47-68

(1997) Moving memories: image and identity in home movies, in Kapstein, N. ed. Essays on Amateur Film. (Association européene des Inédits) 35-44

Articles

(2006) “Shooting the Mediterranean : conflict, compassion and amateur filmmaking in the Mediterranean, c.1925-1939”, Journal of Intercultural Studies 27,3, 313-330

(2006) Journey through the Balkans: amateur travel movies and Mediterranean tourism in the interwar period. Tourist Studies, 6,1,

(2004) At home and abroad with cine enthusiasts: regional amateur filmmaking and visualizing the Mediterranean , c.1928-1962, Geo Journal 59, 4, 323-333

(2003) British holiday films of the Mediterranean . At home and abroad with home movies, c.1925 -1936, Film History, 15 (2) 102-116

(2002) “Picturing the past: archival film and historical landscape change”, Landscapes 3 (1) 81-100.

(2001) “Two tales of a city: Salford in regional filmmaking, 1957-1973”, Manchester Regional History Review, 15, 41-53

(2001) “Seeing it how it was?: Childhood, memory and identity in home-movies”, Area 33 (2) 128-140

(2001) “Regionally specific, globally significant: who's responsible for the regional record?” The Moving Image 1 (2) 152-163

II.Canadian writings include (see also book above):

Chapters

(2001) Icons, flagships and identity: aboriginal tourism in western Canada , in Todd, R and Thornton, M. (eds.) Developments in Aboriginal Studies; New Directions, New Agendas ( University of Ottawa Press )187-210.

(1997) Collision, collusion and challenge: indigenous tourism in western Canada , in Murphy, P.E. ed. Quality Management in Urban Tourism (John Wiley) 115-136.

Articles

(2002) “At the centre of it all are the children: Aboriginal Childhoods through the Camera Lens”. London Journal for Canadian Studies. 17 , [http:www.bbk.ac.uk.llc/LCCS/LJCS/Vol_17/]

(2000/2001) "Defining people differently: claiming space for Aboriginal diversities in contemporary Canada ", London Journal of Canadian Studies 16, 1-11. (Guest editor for same volume) [http:www.bbk.ac.uk.llc/LCCS/LJCS/Vol_16/]

(1999) “Reconstructing memories: indigenous film-making, place-names and identities in “Le Grand Petit European” (1997)” British Journal for Canadian Studies 14(1): 21-34

Links

North West Film Archive
www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk

British Association for Canadian Studies
www.canadian–studies.net

Quebec Government Office in London
www.quebec.org.uk