Photography’s Other Histories PDF
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Photography’sOtherHistories objects/histories CriticalPerspectiveson Art,MaterialCulture, andRepresentation AserieseditedbyNicholasThomas Photography’s Other Histories Edited by Christopher Pinneyand Nicolas Peterson duke university press DurhamandLondon 2003 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ©2003DukeUniversityPress Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStates ofAmericaonacid-freepaper(cid:5) DesignedbyC.H.Westmoreland TypesetinITCGoldenCockerelby TsengInformationSystems,Inc. LibraryofCongressCataloging- in-PublicationDataappearon thelastprintedpageof thisbook. Contents Acknowledgments vii ChristopherPinney Introduction:‘‘HowtheOtherHalf...’’ 1 1. personal archives Jo-AnneDriessens RelatingtoPhotographs 17 MichaelAird GrowingUpwithAborigines 23 HulleahJ.Tsinhnahjinnie WhenIsaPhotographWorthaThousandWords? 40 2. visual economies RoslynPoignant TheMakingofProfessional‘‘Savages’’:FromP.T.Barnum (1883)totheSundayTimes(1998) 55 JamesFaris NavajoandPhotography 85 MorrisLow TheJapaneseColonialEye:Science,Exploration, andEmpire 100 NicolasPeterson TheChangingPhotographicContract:Aborigines andImageEthics 119 ChristopherWright SuppleBodies:ThePapuaNewGuineaPhotographsof CaptainFrancisR.Barton,1899–1907 146 3. self-fashioning and vernacular modernism DeborahPoole FigueroaAznarandtheCuscoIndigenistas:Photography andModernisminEarly-Twentieth-CenturyPeru 173 ChristopherPinney NotesfromtheSurfaceoftheImage:Photography, Postcolonialism,andVernacularModernism 202 HeikeBehrend ImaginedJourneys:TheLikoniFerryPhotographersof Mombasa,Kenya 221 StephenSprague YorubaPhotography:HowtheYorubaSeeThemselves 240 WorksCited 261 Contributors 277 Index 279 Acknowledgments This volume has its origins in a cooperativeventure between the newly established Australian Research Council’s Special Research Centre, the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the Australian National Univer- sity, and the Queensland Museum. On 8 and 9 November 1997 a confer- ence was held at the museum, convened by Michael Aird (Queensland Museum),NicholasThomas(directoroftheCentreforCross-CulturalRe- search),andNicolasPeterson(SchoolofArchaeologyandAnthropology, AustralianNationalUniversity)underthetitleLookingthroughPhotographs: Indigenous Histories, Presences, and Representations. Among thewide range of papers presented were a number from practicing Aboriginal photogra- phers,someofwhichhavesincebeenpublishedelsewhere.Thisvolume includesaselectionofpaperspresentedattheconference,alongwithtwo newpapers,andreprintsofthreeseminalessaysthatrelatetothetheme ofthevolume. Weareindebtedtoawiderangeofpeopleforassistanceinpreparingthis volume.Theconferencewouldnothavebeenpossiblewithoutthegener- ous funding and support of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research and itsdirector.TheQueenslandMuseumgenerouslyhostedit.Fororganizing theconferencewewouldparticularlyliketothankJennyNewell,whodid amarvellousjobofoverseeingitssmoothoperationandthenfollowedthis withthepreliminaryworkonthepreparationofthisvolume.IanBryson, TsariAnderson,andSallyWardalsoablyassistedintheproductionofthis volume. WewouldalsoliketothanktheeditorofAfricanArtsandMarilynHoul- bergforpermissiontoreprintStephenSprague’sessay,whichappearedin AfricanArts12(1)(1978);DeborahPooleandtheeditorofRepresentationsfor permissiontoreprintanabridgedversionofheressay,whichappearedin Representations38(spring1992);andHulleahJ.Tsinhnahjinnieandtheedi- torof Native Nations: Journeys in American Photography (1998; edited by Jane Alison;London:BarbicanArtGallery)forpermissiontoreprintheressay. viii Acknowledgments Christopher Pinney Introduction ‘‘HOW THE OTHER HALF...’’ D uringthetenyearsbetween1877and1887,throughwhichJacobRiis wasdeliveringhisimpassionedlecturesconcerningNewYork’s‘‘in- visible’’poor,photography—whichhesofamouslychampioned—reached anewevidentiarycrescendo.HowtheOtherHalfLives:StudiesamongtheTene- mentsofNewYork(1890),Riis’sexplosiveconjunctionofwordsandimages, has rightly taken a central place among works on the historyof photog- raphy,foritwasafulcrumofphotography’scollisionwithpoliticsandlife andanexemplarycaseoftheimage’sabilitytoreconfigureitsreferent.Riis openedhisworkwiththeobservationthat‘‘onehalfoftheworlddoesnot knowhowtheotherhalflives’’(1997[1890],5),andheusedphotographyasa shamanictraceexportedfromonedemiworldtotheother.Thecollection of essays in this volumewas precipitated by the realization that photog- raphyitselfisnowinneedofasimilarrevelationofitsownotherhalf,its owndisavowedotherhistory. Thisvolumeseekstochangethefocusofthecriticaldebateaboutphoto- graphic practice. Byabandoning the notion that photographic history is best seen as the explosion of a Western technology whose practice has beenmoldedbysingularindividuals,Photography’sOtherHistoriespresents a radically different account of a globally disseminated and locally ap- propriated medium. In its details of the significance of colonial photo- graphicpracticeintheformationofmetropolitanself-identity,thebook alsopresentscasestudiesofcontemporaryphotographicself-fashioning. Further, it addresses the importance of photographic records in the his-
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