21 Reasons Why Worthing Should Have a Public Library:An 1892 Campaign for Our Times

In the last decade, public library closures have become a regular and regrettable occurrence. Government austerity policies have radically reduced local councils’ budgets, forcing tough decisions with limited finances. Libraries are characterised as luxuries when culture is made to compete for cash with other public services. What libraries are for, and who they benefit, has been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent times, and contemporary campaigns to keep libraries in operation have been vociferous and creative, employing a range of tools of protest and persuasion from poetry to posters. In 1892, in Worthing, West Sussex, a library campaign played out on the streets through similarly creative means.  In the first instance, large-scale notices appeared on hoardings all over the town. Two and a half feet high, these text-heavy bill posters used the visual style of election materials to respond to the provocation, “Why Should Worthing Have a Public Library”. Produced in a bright type by W. F. Churcher, a town councillor and the editor of the Worthing Gazette, as part of an ambitious campaign spearheaded by a young solicitor, Robert W. Charles, the poster sought to harness the growing energy of the so-called ‘public library movement’ for the benefit of the town. This 2,750-word essay, produced for the Worthing Museum & Art Gallery / University of Brighton research collaboration, Objects Unwrapped, explores the campaigns for and against public libraries in the late nineteenth century through the case study of the fortunes of one particular library in Worthing, West Sussex, UK. By examining the campaign documentation - ranging across posters, handbills, song lyrics and letters to the press - the article considers the hopes and fears ascribed to working-class reading and public knowledge, past and present

Tough Love: The Dark Heart of Valentine's Day

A 1200-word commissioned article on the history of mock, mocking 'vinegar' valentine cards for Who Do You Think You Are (Britain's bestselling family history magazine) in a special February 2025 edition, free for Apple News subscribers

On producing the most beautiful book in Switzerland

This 1000-word blog post was invited by the Internationalising Design History research cluster at the University of Brighton following the award of a Swiss Federal Office of Culture award for Annebella Pollen's book, The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift: Intellectual Barbarians

Entente Cordiale

A 1000-word article for the leading newsstand naturist magazine, H&E Naturist, formerly Health & Efficiency, reflecting on the recent release of a film by French TV company, Arte, based on Annebella Pollen's 2021 book, Nudism in a Cold Climat

The Shifting Authority of Auntie: BBC4 Photography Season

It has been ten years since the BBC launched the six-part series, The Genius of Photography, described - in their own words - as “the first major television history of this ever more influential artform”. This article appraises recent contributions to photography on television in its analysis of BBC4's spring 2017’s Photography Season. The season comprised a sequence of newly-commissioned works including a three-part series on British photography, an hour-long exploration of family photography, a new edit of old material from the BBC archives, and a new instalment in the documentary series, What do Artists do all Day? featuring street photographer Dougie Wallace. The 1200-word commissioned essay for Source: The Photographic Review examines the changing moral positions of the broadcaster in relation to the photographic form over the last sixty years. The review adds to a growing body of articles by Pollen for Source since 2012, covering photography in film and exhibition as well as in art and academic publications