The Routledge Companion to Global Photographies

by Lucy Soutter (Editor), Duncan Wooldridge (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032436616
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/30/2024
Series:	Routledge Art History and Visual Studies Companions
Pages:	444
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

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).

Table of Contents

Global Photographies and Questions of Cultural Translation  1. How to Use This Book  PART I: Photography in the Anthropocene: Climate Change and Environment  2. The View from the South  3. Decolonising Detritus: (Re)cycles of Extraction and (e-)Waste in the Photographs of Jean Claude Nsabimana  4. The Politics of Water: Social Justice and Photography in the Anthropocene in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa  5. Antarctica, Ice, and Photography  6. A Dialogic View from the North  PART II: Decolonial Practices: Speaking Back to the Canon  7. Can We Use Photography Against Photography? An Interview with Rolando Vazquez Melken  8. Decolonial Strategies and the Southasian Imagination: Auto-narrative, Archival Responses and Counter-narratives  9. ‘What’s Class Got to Do With It?’: Decoloniality, Spatiality, Class Struggle in the Photographs of The Evaton Peoples’ Archive  10. Tongue in Cheek: Julie Edel Hardenberg’s Visual Language  11. Localising Identity and Understanding Legacy: A New Generation of Hungarian Photographers Search for the ‘Locus of Enunciation’  12. Archive In Situ: Emese Mucsi and Nina Mangalanayagam in conversation with Jennifer Bajorek  PART III: Gender and Queer Theory in Photography Today: Identities and Histories  13. Visual Constellations  14. Expanded Sexual and Gender Identities  15. Visual Disruptions of Global Landscapes  16. Gender in Curation and Exhibition Design   17. Dissident Artists as Protagonists of Visibility Processes  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  PART IV: New Materialities: Expanded Practices in Contemporary Art Photography  19. An Engine, Not a Camera: Curating Environmental Histories of Photography and Extraction  20. Cut and Paste: Performing History, Materiality, and the Family Album in the Work of Lebohang Kganye  21. Public Arrivals, Private Departure: The Life of Images at Chobi Mela and Photo Kathmandu  22. The Physical Lives of Images, Their Matter, Appearances and Disappearances in the Context of Beirut  23. The Stickiness of Images: Materiality and Attention in Contemporary European Photographies  24. The Archive of Unnamed Workers: Examining the Legacy of Colonial-era Photography in AI  25. Cai Dongdong's Artistic Trajectory: From Conceptual Image Making to Photographic Installation  PART V: Forming Communities: Networks, Platforms and Institutions  26. A Mapping of Photo Communities in Southeast Asia   27. Photography and Trans-Africanism: A Story of Journeys  28. Collection and Educational Dissemination: A Case Study in Bogotá, Colombia  29. Towards A New Arts Ecosystem: PhotoIreland’s Strategy in Converging Communities around Photography  30. Towards an Artisanal Intelligence: Reflections from the Academic Periphery in Latin America  PART VI: Global Approaches to Photobooks: From Production to Distribution  31. The Expansion of the Photobook: From Traditional to Post-digital  32. The Photobook as Shape Shifter in the Expanded Realm of Contemporary Photography: Examples from South Korea  33. Transforming Perspectives: A Conversation with Yanyou Yuan Di, Pioneer of Chinese Contemporary Photographic Publishing  34. Toward a Publishing Model to Come  35. Foto Fémina: Shaping the Narrative of Female Photographers from Latin America and the Caribbean  36. Curating Photobooks in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong: A Roundtable

Editorial Reviews

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

From the Publisher