During 2025, the Peter Marlow Foundation welcomed our inaugural Archival Research Fellow, Camille Serisier. We are grateful to Camille for reflecting on her time working with the PMF team and exploring the archive.

By Camille Serisier

The 2025 Archival Research Fellowship was the result of years of collaboration between the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) Department of Photography and the Peter Marlow Foundation (PMF). Professor Anna Fox and Dr Caroline Molloy from UCA have worked with Shannon Ghannam and Fiona Naylor at PMF on projects designed to share the potential of photography as a tool for storytelling and professional development. When PMF decided to develop a research project centred on their archive, it was only natural that they did so in dialogue with their close colleagues at UCA.

After developing the role and its goals, a call for applications was shared amongst the UCA student body. I was excited to apply and delighted to be offered the chance to work with the PMF team. I was of course familiar with Peter Marlow’s work and had enjoyed meeting Shannon Ghannam during a storytelling workshop with the Young Creative Collective, an arts mentoring programme for young people from refugee, migrant and diaspora backgrounds, in 2024.

During Fellowship induction, it became clear that PMF was in an exciting period of growth and development. After establishing a significant footprint of public engagement projects, the foundation was in the process of bringing its archive from various off-site storage locations together at their base in Dungeness. The idea being that the archive would eventually move into a bespoke gallery with onsite archive storage designed by PMF Chair of Trustees and renowned designer Fiona Naylor. There was a sense of possibility and the excitement of expansion. The energy in the team was infectious and I was excited to contribute, even in a modest way, at this pivotal stage of the foundation’s development.

I remember visiting the archive at Dungeness for the first time. Touring the shelves I was blown away by the names listed on the photo boxes – David Beckham, Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher – it is one thing to know Peter Marlow had an illustrious career as a Magnum Photographer spanning 40 years, it is something else to look through boxes and boxes of exquisite test prints of some of the most famous people, political events, and historic moments of the last half century.

Having worked in many collection storage areas, I was impressed by Peter Marlow’s meticulous organisational skills and foresight. Each folder of negatives, every box of test prints, even the stacks of handwritten diaries were all meticulously labelled and organised. Here was a photographer who had recognised the value of careful archiving and respected that each element of his practice represented a precious interaction with other people.

In addition to the works themselves, the legacy they represent is firmly rooted in something more personal. Fiona Naylor, who established PMF in 2018, was Peter Marlow’s partner. She and their children feature in some of the boxes of images. She knows the stories behind many of the prints. And it was Fiona who gave me a magical tour of Dungeness, where the archive is now being brought together and housed. Together with Shannon Ghannam, we crunched along the shingle as Fiona explained the history of each building, mangled metal structure, and traffic cone barrier. We had lunch at the Snack Shack, walked past Prospect Cottage, then climbed the winding steps of the lighthouse. From the top we looked out across the sea, the nuclear power station, and PMF’s current home at the Experimental Station.

The experience was fascinating. Fiona and Shannon answered my questions about the area, and the archive. We had a compelling conversation about the state of photography in Britain, the history of Dungeness, the Iodine tablets that arrive occasionally by post, and the future of the foundation. They were open, honest and funny, while still being pragmatic. Most of all, they were passionate. Fiona’s love of Peter Marlow and his work, Dungeness, and photography was startling. It reminded me that at the heart of the foundation was a life, which had left behind a wonderful legacy of which the archive was only a part.

In Shannon, I saw a burning belief that through photography people can extend their horizons and touch the beauty that so often eludes us. A beauty that she shares with others via a dizzying calendar of events, including workshops, university visits, prize judging, public talks, and a lot of hard work.

I have worked in big institutions that have had to consciously maintain a connection with their origin story. Or that have made the decision for various reasons to step away from that origin. As institutions grow, the individual stories of founders need to be negotiated with the many stories that fill archives and collection holdings.

By contrast, PMF is not just about Peter Marlow, it is about Fiona Naylor and the life they shared together. It is about Fiona’s work behind the scenes on the Peter Marlow Foundation and Magnum Photos. PMF is a young organisation at an exciting stage. They are uniquely positioned to help photographers recognise the value of legacy and to share the potential of photography with anyone interested. As a smaller organisation, they can be innovative and responsive. And do so driven by kindness, generosity, and passion.

I undertook a great deal of practical work during my Fellowship with PMF. I created an initial inventory of the archive, developed a locations register, reviewed the guiding pillars, spoke to stakeholders, met with the wider PMF team, made suggestions about financial sustainability, and helped establish key industry partnerships. For each thing I did, in my mind I came back to that first tour of Dungeness with Fiona and Shannon. I thought about the amazing archive of Peter Marlow’s work, the wonderful people involved in PMF, and their desire to share Peter’s legacy as a catalyst for supporting the disadvantaged to find identity and a future through photography. And I remembered that this foundation is not centred around a naïve or simple type of beauty, but a beauty dedicated to recording the moments that matter and honouring those memories. A life well lived. An unjust war. A devastating class system. The miracle of flight. The overwhelming power of faith. The strength to endure through tragedy.

Standing at the top of the lighthouse that day with Fiona Naylor and Shannon Ghannam, I saw the possibilities and opportunities that lay ahead for PMF. The nuclear power station on one side looming over the shingle landscape of little huts on the other. It’s a magnificent and surreal landscape at odds with the hedgerows and grassy paddocks I have come to associate with Southeast England. Dungeness is otherworldly, but through Fiona and Shannon’s eyes, I recognised its beauty. And inspired by it all I took some photos.