Totalna porażka. O dwóch projektach fotograficznych [Epic Fail: About Two Photographic Projects]

Epic Fail: About Two Photographic ProjectsThe paper discusses images of failure in Polish photography created in 1970–2000, drawing on three particular projects: Archeology of Photography by Jerzy Lewczyński and the exhibitions The New Documentalists (2006) and Postdocument: Missing Documents: Documents of the Polish Transformation After 1989 (2012). As such, it concentrates on documentary, or post-documentary, photography which suffers no illusions as to the mimetic power of the medium, but persists in hoping that photos can have social impact.As the analyzed projects aim to create a critical picture of reality, they focus on spaces and people subject to exclusion and on the experience of failure (e.g., Unfinished Houses by Konrad Pustoła and Wojciech Wilczyk’s There’s No Such Thing as an Innocent Eye), as well as on the erosion of interpersonal relations (e.g., Aneta Grzeszykowska’s Album). Disappointments stemming from both the socialist reality and Polish capitalism mix with the desire to find and preserve what is intimate and authentic. The discussed artists devote the majority of their attention to the problem of photography as a medium and its ability to generate social change. However, they remain fully aware of the fact that the very nature of the photographic image, with its media entanglements, makes it difficult to create an unadulterated reflection of reality; it also makes it difficult to accept anything that does not fit the visual poetics of success, anything old, damaged, démodé, or kitschy. Accordingly, the artists raise important questions about the rules for creating images in the photographic universe and about the possibility of transcending them to create a new type of document, one that would elude the rules of “dominant images” (a term first coined by Rafał Drozdowski), and to enable such a use of photography as was postulated by John Berger: rooted in personal experience and memory. Totalna porażka. O dwóch projektach fotograficznychArtykuł ukazuje obrazy porażki w fotografii polskiej powstałej w okresie 1970–2000. Odwołuje się do trzech projektów: Archeologii fotografii Jerzego Lewczyńskiego oraz wystaw Nowi dokumentaliści (2006) i Postdokument. Świat nie przedstawiony. Dokumenty polskiej transformacji po 1989 roku (2012). Skupia się więc na fotografii nurtu dokumentalnego czy postdokumentalnego – nieżywiącej złudzeń co do mimetycznej mocy medium, ale nieporzucającej nadziei na społeczne oddziaływanie zdjęć.Przywoływane projekty stawiają sobie za cel stworzenie krytycznego obrazu rzeczywistości, a więc koncentrują się na przestrzeniach i ludziach podlegających wykluczeniu, przegranych (np. Niedokończone domy Konrada Pustoły, Niewinne oko nie istnieje Wojciecha Wilczyka), a także na erozji stosunków międzyludzkich (np. Album Anety Grzeszykowskiej). Rozczarowania związane zarówno z rzeczywistością socjalistyczną, jak i polskim kapitalizmem, mieszają się z pragnieniem odnalezienia i ocalenia tego, co żywe, bliskie, autentyczne.Artyści najwięcej uwagi poświęcają problemowi fotografii jako medium i jej zdolności generowania społecznej zmiany. Zdają sobie sprawę, że specyfika obrazu fotograficznego z jego medialnymi uwikłaniami utrudnia przekazanie niezafałszowanego obrazu rzeczywistości oraz akceptację tego, co nie mieści się w obrębie wizualnej poetyki sukcesu, tego, co stare, zniszczone, niemodne, kiczowate. Zadają w ten sposób pytanie o reguły tworzenia obrazów w fotograficznym uniwersum i o możliwość ich przekroczenia – stworzenia nowego dokumentu. Miałby on wymykać się regułom „obrazów dominujących” (określenie Rafała Drozdowskiego), umożliwić takie użycie fotografii, jakie postulował John Berger: zakorzenione w osobistym doświadczeniu i pamięci.

Queen Of The Bands: Carnival And “Monarchy” In The (416)

Queen of the Bands: Carnival and “Monarchy” in the (416) is a solo multimedia gallery installation which explores the complexity of Queenliness through the audio and photographic documentation of four women who perform as the head female masqueraders within the complex political framework of Toronto Caribbean Carnival's 2017 King and Queen competition. The Canadian national narrative reserves Queenliness for historically dominant European figures such as the Queen of England, so what does it mean to be a woman of colour performing as a queen in a Canadian carnival celebration? The complexity of this history and the prominence of African masking traditions in carnival Mas’ making, among other cultural influences in the Caribbean, contribute to the notion of Queenliness within the framework of carnival. <div>The purpose of my photographic investigation is both to capture a tangible element of carnival’s relationship to Emancipation Day history in Toronto and, among other things, to examine the women’s representation and power in Afro-Caribbean communal celebrations. My additional objectives were the following: First, to evaluate how the historical framework of Emancipation Day in Ontario has shaped the current production of these celebrations in Toronto. Second, to contextualize the head female masquerader’s position within the historical framework of emancipation and carnival. Third, to determine the role carnival celebrations play in defining a racialized woman’s identity in Canadian society. Fourth, to investigate how employing documentary photography practices can shape the understanding of Emancipation Day and contextualize African Canadian history. Lastly, to investigate the effect British monarchal representation in Canada has on Queenliness when performed by women of colour.</div>

Queen Of The Bands: Carnival And “Monarchy” In The (416)

Queen of the Bands: Carnival and “Monarchy” in the (416) is a solo multimedia gallery installation which explores the complexity of Queenliness through the audio and photographic documentation of four women who perform as the head female masqueraders within the complex political framework of Toronto Caribbean Carnival's 2017 King and Queen competition. The Canadian national narrative reserves Queenliness for historically dominant European figures such as the Queen of England, so what does it mean to be a woman of colour performing as a queen in a Canadian carnival celebration? The complexity of this history and the prominence of African masking traditions in carnival Mas’ making, among other cultural influences in the Caribbean, contribute to the notion of Queenliness within the framework of carnival. <div>The purpose of my photographic investigation is both to capture a tangible element of carnival’s relationship to Emancipation Day history in Toronto and, among other things, to examine the women’s representation and power in Afro-Caribbean communal celebrations. My additional objectives were the following: First, to evaluate how the historical framework of Emancipation Day in Ontario has shaped the current production of these celebrations in Toronto. Second, to contextualize the head female masquerader’s position within the historical framework of emancipation and carnival. Third, to determine the role carnival celebrations play in defining a racialized woman’s identity in Canadian society. Fourth, to investigate how employing documentary photography practices can shape the understanding of Emancipation Day and contextualize African Canadian history. Lastly, to investigate the effect British monarchal representation in Canada has on Queenliness when performed by women of colour.</div>

Promoting Social Justice through Storytelling in Museums

In 2018 the Anthropology Museum at California State University San Bernardino (USA) opened an exhibition entitled In|Dignity. The collaborative endeavour combined social science techniques, documentary photography, and theatre performances to present first person narratives of 43 community members. Participants represented marginalized demographics and intersectional identities that extended far beyond standardized approaches to ‘diversity’. Their stories provided an intimate look into experiences of discrimination, microaggressions, harassment, exclusion, and other affronts to self-worth and barriers to community belonging. This article argues that connecting individuals through telling and listening to stories is a valid strategy to promote social justice. In|Dignity provides one case study of a museum using the narrative form and the processes of exhibition development to disrupt power hierarchies, uplift community concerns, and promote human dignity.

Documentary Photography and Protest under Chile’s Dictatorship

An array of documentary photographic practices that emerged during the dictatorship in Chile (1973–1990) remain understudied, despite their political, aesthetical, and historical import. From the mid-1970s onward, these different practices served different purposes: some made visible the crime of disappearance and its disavowal by the repressive state; others stood as supplementary evidence that confirmed the legal existence of the detained-disappeared; some were a crucial force in denouncing state repression and demanding justice for victims; and some made it possible for independent media to simultaneously comply with and ridicule the censorship of images imposed by the dictatorship in 1984. These practices also helped to consolidate the expanding photographic field under dictatorship. They include the public display of ID photos and portraits torn from family albums; documentary images that relatives of the victims of repression pinned to their chests; the reproduction, compilation, and incorporation of these portraits into legal files and habeas corpus claims; the publication of countless photos of popular protests in independent media; and different photographic initiatives put forward by a group of photographers who established the Independent Photographers Association in 1981. Notably, the expanding photographic field under dictatorship engaged not only individuals and groups directly involved with photography but also ad-hoc human rights collectives and organizations (especially the Group of Family Members of the Detained-Disappeared and the Vicariate of Solidarity), as well as lawyers, judges, journalists, and everyday users of photography. Given the different arenas in which documentary images circulated, the transformations they underwent to resist repression and censorship, and the array of individuals involved in their (re)production and dissemination, a study of documentary photography under dictatorship in Chile cannot content itself, as has been the case, with surveying the practices that emerged within the artistic field. A study of the visual culture under dictatorship instead reveals both the different uses of photography in the public space and the transformations of documentary images in their successive circulations and disseminations.

Fear: Introduction to special issue

Fear needs dealing with. Fear demands to be abated, countered or turned into something else, contributing and curtailing how we ‘do’ being human beings. This special issue of the European Journal of Cultural Studies addresses fear within media and popular culture, adopting a cultural studies approach to fear in a variety of socio-cultural and political contexts. A cultural studies approach allows us to enhance the horizon of understanding cultural practices, mediation and the subjective experience of fear as something we need to work through, in a process of recognition and shock, action and reaction, understanding and reflection. This focus on ‘working through fear’ offers new insights into the intensely subjective aspects of fear as it is creatively explored in representations within drama and documentary, photography and art, and in user-generated content, memes and political satire, and as it is embodied and experienced by people in the context of their realities. In addition, it shows how fear generates energy, anxiety and even desire. Rather than offering a generalizing account, this issue seeks to address fear in specific contexts, localities and from specific roles and perspectives.

Prácticas emergentes en proyectos de espacio público: el caso de vía Argentina en ciudad de Panamá

This article uses an urban intervention in Panama City to discuss fundamental concepts in public space projects from a critical and theoretical perspective.First, the functions of the street as a basic structure of public space are illustrated. Its importance is recognized not only as an element of urban connectivity, but also as a place of movement, encounter, support and creation of urban meanings and social identities.Secondly, our case study is contextualized: the urban renewal of via Argentina, a street in the urban center whose environment was in a state of degradation like most streets in the city, largely occupied by the presence of vehicles. The intervention is part of a series of urban projects aimed at improving the physical structure of the city.The third section begins a critical analysis of the actions on Via Argentina, starting with the redistribution of street space, the relationship between vehicles and pedestrians, and the consolidation of public space.Next, we discuss in detail the new primary elements used for the urbanization of the street. Curbs, fords, pavement, rigola, gutters, tree surrounds and bollards become part of a system that must maintain a coherent relationship between all its parts. In addition, emphasis is placed on the design of the ground and the application of the pavement as a tool for the construction of an urban image and identity.Finally, the article ends with an analysis of the parameters of accessibility in the project, relating the concept to the use of the pavement and the configuration in some sections of the street as a single platform. The article uses a wide repertoire of documentary photography to contextualize the case study.

Shooting The Truth : How Photographs In The Media Betray Us

This thesis investigates the manipulations photojournalists make to images that are intended to deliver news and present the reality/truth. It explores how documentary photography, which claims to present reality, has been manipulated throughout the years and analyses approaches of photographers and reactions of audiences in relation to these changes. This thesis examines the work of four photographers (Kertesz, Cartier-Bresson, Smith and Salgado) and it includes a reveiw of photographers' codes of ethics, research on photojournalistic practice in various countries, audience surveys, interviews and surveys with photographers. The surveys include case studies of photos which were altered in various ways, with questions about the ethics of photo manipulation and the importance of disclosure of alterations. By shedding some light on past and current photo alteration practices and expectations of the public and employees in the journalism industry, this paper hopes to raise questions about and provide insight into the future of photojournalism.