Throwback Thursday! Summer Programme 2006

During lockdown we have loved to see our International Training Programme (ITP) fellows posting images on social media of their summers in the UK and remembering ‘their’ ITP experiences – particularly as we weren’t able to deliver a summer programme this year.

While all our fellows follow a similar six-week programme, each year we make creative and reactive changes so every year is different and everyone’s experience of the ITP is their own.  So I wanted to share some of my favourite ‘moments’ with you and over the next weeks and months I’m going to post some images for you from our 14 summer programmes and a variety of legacy projects.

Thanks to the brilliant team of photographers in the British Museum’s department of Photography & Imaging we have an amazing archive of images dating back to our first programme in 2006 and I wanted to share some of my favourite images with you.   It’s been great fun going through all the photographs and it has brought back some incredible memories of previous years – both the summer programmes and some of our legacy projects.

So welcome to ‘Throwback Thursdays’ which is going to start with the summer programme 2006 – which seems like only yesterday – although the photographs tell a different story!!!

In 2006 the ITP programme looked very different. We had the pleasure of welcoming just 15 fellows from 6 countries – China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, South Africa and Sudan which, looking back, was a very small group but gave us plenty of opportunity to work directly with our colleagues. We also worked with just three UK Partners with fellows travelling to Cardiff, Lincoln and Newcastle. Perhaps the most noticeable difference was that back then there was no ‘Object in focus’ project which I know can be quite a stressful part of the programme but I think you’d all agree, a fun and productive one.

I hope that you enjoy these posts and that my favourite images from the past 18 years – some of which you may not have seen before – bring back some lovely memories for you too.