1st Edition
The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies
In response to widespread demand for more knowledge and insight about contemporary photographies beyond Western centers of production and dissemination, this volume provides a transnational discussion, grounded in dialogue between authors and editors from diverse locations and contexts.
Ecological and decolonial discourses around photography reveal the medium’s global entanglements: images produced on one side of the globe are the result of labors which span its full surface. At the same time, the multiplicity of approaches and understandings of the photograph reveal that even though it might seem like a universal language, we utilize its tools to radically different ends. The volume explores issues surrounding cultural translation, photography’s response to climate change, decolonial practices, network formation, new materialities, identities and the role of photobooks. It also provides in-depth surveys and case studies of global practices and theories, alongside interviews and roundtable discussions with key figures whose perspectives illuminate the contemporary field.
This groundbreaking collection is an essential resource for academics and students working in or with photography, contextual studies, history and theory, but also media and cultural studies more broadly.
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
Global Photographies and Questions of Cultural Translation
Lucy Soutter
1. How to Use This Book
Lucy Soutter and Duncan Wooldridge
PART ONE
Photography in the Anthropocene: Climate Change and Environment
Edited by Jean Brundrit and Svea Josephy
2. The View from the South
Anna Stielau
3. Decolonising Detritus: (Re)cycles of Extraction and (e-)Waste in the Photographs of Jean Claude Nsabimana
Svea Josephy, Jane Alexander and Jean-Claude Nsabimana
4. The Politics of Water: Social Justice and Photography in the Anthropocene in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Annabelle Wienand and Thobani K
5. Antarctica, Ice, and Photography
Jean Brundrit
6. A Dialogic View from the North
Marsha Meskimmon, Helen Glanville, Richard Hodgkins and Paul Wood
PART TWO
Decolonial Practices: Speaking Back to the Canon
Edited by Nina Mangalanayagam and Emese Mucsi
7. Can We Use Photography Against Photography? An Interview with Rolando Vazquez Melken
Nina Mangalanayagam, Emese Mucsi and Rolando Vázquez Melken
8. Decolonial Strategies and the Southasian Imagination: Auto-narrative, Archival Responses and Counter-narratives
Tanvi Mishra
9. ‘What’s Class Got to Do With It?’: Decoloniality, Spatiality, Class Struggle in the Photographs of The Evaton Peoples’ Archive
Nomusa Makhubu
10. Tongue in Cheek: Julie Edel Hardenberg’s Visual Language
Louise Wolthers
11. Localising Identity and Understanding Legacy: A New Generation of Hungarian Photographers Search for the ‘Locus of Enunciation’
Ágnes Básthy
12. Archive In Situ: Emese Mucsi and Nina Mangalanayagam in conversation with Jennifer Bajorek
Jennifer Bajorek, Nina Mangalanayagam and Emese Mucsi
PART THREE
Gender and Queer Theory in Photography Today: Identities and Histories
Edited by Alejandra Niedermaier
13. Visual Constellations
Alejandra Niedermaier
14. Expanded Sexual and Gender Identities
Flora Dunster
15. Visual Disruptions of Global Landscapes
Selfa A. Chew-Melendez
16. Gender in Curation and Exhibition Design
Sandra Nagel and Jonathan Lalloz
17. Dissident Artists as Protagonists of Visibility Processes
Josefina Goñi Bacugalupi
18. Poetic, Critical and Political Resonance: Report from a Roundtable between Selfa A. Chew-Melendez, Flora Dunster, Josefina Goñi Bacugalupi, Sandra Nagel, Alejandra
Niedermaier and Jonathan Lalloz
Alejandra Niedermaier
PART FOUR
New Materialities: Expanded Practices in Contemporary Art Photography
Edited by Duncan Wooldridge and Rashi Rajguru
19. An Engine, Not a Camera: Curating Environmental Histories of Photography and Extraction
Boaz Levin
20. Cut and Paste: Performing History, Materiality, and the Family Album in the Work of Lebohang Kganye
Svea Josephy and Lebohang Kganye
21. Public Arrivals, Private Departure: The Life of Images at Chobi Mela and Photo Kathmandu
Veeranganakumari Solanki
22. The Physical Lives of Images, Their Matter, Appearances and Disappearances in the Context of Beirut
Gregory Buchakjian
23. The Stickiness of Images: Materiality and Attention in Contemporary European Photographies
Duncan Wooldridge
24. The Archive of Unnamed Workers: Examining the Legacy of Colonial-era Photography in AI
Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert and Alexia Achilleos
25. Cai Dongdong's Artistic Trajectory: From Conceptual Image Making to Photographic Installation
He Yining and Cai Dongdong
PART FIVE
Forming Communities: Networks, Platforms and Institutions
Edited by Camilo Páez Vanegas
26. A Mapping of Photo Communities in Southeast Asia
Zhuang Wubin
27. Photography and Trans-Africanism: A Story of Journeys
Emeka Okereke
28. Collection and Educational Dissemination: A Case Study in Bogotá, Colombia
Camilo Páez Vanegas
29. Towards A New Arts Ecosystem: PhotoIreland’s Strategy in Converging Communities around Photography
Ángel Luis González Fernández
30. Towards an Artisanal Intelligence: Reflections from the Academic Periphery in Latin America
Camilo Páez Vanegas, Anamaría Briede Westermeyer, Ana Casas Broda, Alexander Fattal and Gisela Volá
PART SIX
Global Approaches to Photobooks: From Production to Distribution
Edited by Yinhua Chu and Zhuang Wubin
31. The Expansion of the Photobook: From Traditional to Post-digital
Yinhua Chu
32. The Photobook as Shape Shifter in the Expanded Realm of Contemporary Photography: Examples from South Korea
Sunyoung Kim
33. Transforming Perspectives: A Conversation with Yanyou Yuan Di, Pioneer of Chinese Contemporary Photographic Publishing
He Yining and Yanyou Yuan Di
34. Toward a Publishing Model to Come
Ivan Vartanian
35. Foto Fémina: Shaping the Narrative of Female Photographers from Latin America and the Caribbean
Verónica Sanchis Bencomo
36. Curating Photobooks in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong: A Roundtable
Zhuang Wubin, Hà Đào, Kalen Wing Ki Lee, Jeffrey J C Lim and Kurniadi Widodo
Index
Biography
Lucy Soutter is an artist and writer based in London. She is Reader in Photography at the University of Westminster. Her work focuses on questions of value and meaning in the expanded field of photography and contemporary art. She is the author of Why Art Photography? (2nd ed. 2018), co-editor of Writer Conversations (2023) and writes for publications including 1000 Words, Photoworks and Source.
Duncan Wooldridge is an artist and writer and is Reader in Photography at the School of Digital Arts, Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University. His research explores experimentation, materialities and photography’s future tenses. He is the editor of John Hilliard: Not Black and White (2014), the author of To Be Determined: Photography and the Future (2021) and the co-editor of Writer Conversations (2023).
“In this unprecedented geological era, the book chronicles the efforts of artists, photographers, writers, historians and institution builders to comprehend our time through the lens of photography, exploring its diversity, materiality, and the fractures it reveals.”
- Sarker Protick, Photographer, Artist, and Co-curator Chobi Mela Festival
“This Companion to Global Photographies is a remarkable and ambitious attempt in introducing a different, refreshing way to present some of the current, urgent conversations about Photography - one that is multi-directional, polycentric and collaborative. By acknowledging and creating the space for the many perspectives and opacities around the thematics approached, the book presents itself as a powerful set of tools to approach photography as a medium in constant expansion, addressing its global interconnections. A welcomed initiative that will hopefully set fertile ground for more.”
- Elisa Medde, Independent Publisher and Curator
