Keith Kennedy

This collection captures significant projects and works by Keith and those he collaborated with throughout his working life, as well as his own art practice. Centered around his teaching and workshops, the material ranges from planning and methodology to outcomes and artworks.

Most material dates between 1960s-1980s. It consists principally of photographs, slides, negatives, artworks, and written work (notes, correspondence and stories). The material encapsulates Keith's whole practice in this period, showing his interests in photography, drama and politics and his work in healthcare and educational contexts.

Within the collection there is a certain amount of duplication, of both drafts and final copies of particular pieces of work, but also the same images and texts reappear in various different files. This has been left as is, in most cases, except were obvious duplications occur in the same file. It is intended to show how Keith reused and recontextualised much of his work, and there are several 'scrapbook' style collections throughout which seek to reflect and present the various facets of his work.

Key projects and places in this archive include:

The Hornsey Group: Members of a teacher training course led by Keith between 1964-1965 which engaged in a wide range of experimental activities, primarily exploring the use of group dynamics in education alongside the use of fine arts practices and drama.

Henderson Hospital: A residential psychiatric hospital in Sutton, Surrey, which was the venue for a series of workshops run by Keith involving photography and film practices, often aided by a group of trainee teachers, between 1972-1975. They were also joined by artists and those interested in their work, notable among these was the artist Jo Spence. In particular, Keith developed the Group Camera project here, as well as various forms of prompts and games used to help aid discussion and self-expression. Henderson utilised the concept of the therapeutic community and group therapy to help their residents work through their problems. This practice centred around a non-heirarchical structure to group sessions, no pharmaceutical medication and the freedom for residents to leave if they wished.

St. Luke's Unit, Middlesex Hospital: Another psychiatric unit in which Keith delivered similar experimental workshops, also in the 1970s.

ID Kit (also called Identikit or Self-Identikit): Photography project run by Keith in various contexts, including Henderson Hospital and various schools. The participants are guided through the use of a work book to create photographic, drawn or collaged representations of themselves based on various prompts, such as: 'When I am sad I look like this' or 'These are my images of heaven and hell'. The images are then discussed in a group context where the emphasis is on identity and self-perceptions.

Doorstep Drama group: Drama group for unemployed, disabled participants based at Page Green Centre, but delivering performances in various other locations. It lasted for a year (between 1984-1985). They used a method called 'memodrama' which based performances on memories across various themes, as well as photography and costume.

Photea project: Photography group for unemployed, disabled participants meeting weekly for 'the taking of photographs and tea'. They were initially funded by the Haringey Youth Service initial, but this funding was withdrawn. They met at Haringey's Day Education Centre at Ermine Road.

Page Green Centre: Venue for Doorstep Drama, as well as other workshops led by or involving Keith. Based in Tottenham, London. It had close links with the High Cross Drop-in Centre (subsequently known as the Bus Stop Project). It was established as a joint project between Haringey Education Service and Middlesex Polytechnic. It offered art-based projects to local schools.

1960-2017

24 Boxes, 1 Outsize Box

This catalogue has been created with no structure other than the groupings of materials at item level. This may make the catalogue harder to browse but is entirely reflective of Keith's practice. He worked in many different contexts, often concurrently, and elements of his work were repeated throughout his career.

The items are numbered 1-150 and are roughly chronological, although much of the dating of files is based on estimates (using the materials and working with Keith directly). As such, the order of the files is to be understood as a representation of Keith's working practice and how the material was discovered in Keith's house.

Titles in "quotes" were written on the original files, all other titles were given by the cataloguer based on the material.

Series A is a set of materials kept seperately by Keith and is his collection of magazines, comics and pamphlets. It has been organised accoring to subject matter by the cataloguer, in the interests of making them easier to access. This is not the original order they were found in.

Keith Kennedy worked primarily in an educational context, with a particular interest in art, drama, participatory film-making and photography, and radio.

After a period of national service from 1952-1954, and a string of clerical jobs from 1954-1960, Keith started to pursue a career in teaching. He trained at Trent Park to become a drama teacher, and went on to teach drama at Albany Boy's School in Enfield, Middlesex from 1962-1966. He then became Head of Drama at Markfield School, South Tottenham, where he worked from 1966-1967. After this he took a post as Lecturer at Loughton College of Further Education, from 1967-1969. He then took a post as a Lecturer in Drama at the Hornsey College of Art Teacher Training Department, also teaching on the Art Teachers' Certificate (ATC) course.

During this period, in the 1960s, Keith became involved with 'The Hornsey Group' who were students based in Haringey and the Hornsey College of Art who engaged in a wide range of experimental activities, primarily exploring the use of group dynamics in education and the use of fine arts practices, primarilly drama and photography, as a means to encourage participation and self-exploration.

Using these ideas, Keith took his ATC students and other members of the Hornsey Group, to the psychiatric hospitals, Henderson and St. Luke's Psychiatric Unit at Middlesex Hospital during the 1970s. Together, they began to experiment with the delivery of workshops in this context using group photography and his own practice of individual photographic exloration based on prompts, called the ID-Kit. In particular, the ID-Kit was a means of encouraging participants to develop ways of looking at themselves reflectively and using the images they created to express something of themselves within a group context. As Keith describes, it was 'a practice which calls for the making and showing of pictures to others and stating to them, for example, 'this is a picture of me at work'; 'this image of me is a lie' … doing this in a group will lead to a visual transmission between members in a situation which is highly verbal'.

This part of Keith's work was influenced by the work of R.D. Laing, and Henderson Hospital, in particular, used some of the principles of anti-psychiatry practice and the model of therapeutic communities.

The workshops Keith developed and delivered in these medical contexts were taken to various groups of physically disabled people. He formed the Doorstep Drama group and also Photea, which used photograph and drama to create a space of expression for those who may have otherwised not been able to access this kind of communication. They put on plays, made costume and posed for photographs using handmade speech bubbles to talk about their lives.

Later, Keith expolored this teaching methodology in schools in Tottenham (such as Page Green School), often working with underprivileged kids to help them gain skills in photography and reflect on their situation.

Keith has continued to create artworks and projects on these themes from his home in Lewes, recently creating work about his distrust of cars and his love of walking.

This collection has been catalogued and is available to library members. Some items have access restrictions which are explained in the item-level catalogue records.