The Routledge Companion to Photography, Representation and Social Justice

455 Pages·2022·34.293 MB·English

by  Moritz Neumüller (editor)

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO
PHOTOGRAPHY, REPRESENTATION
AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
Including work by leading scholars, artists, scientists and practitioners in the feld of visual cul-
ture, The Routledge Companion to Photography, Representation and Social Justice is a seminal refer-
ence source for the new roles and contexts of photography in the twenty-frst century.
Bringing together a diverse set of contributions from across the globe, the volume explores
current debates surrounding post-colonial thinking, empowerment, identity, contemporary
modes of self-representation, diversity in the arts, the automated creation and use of imagery in
science and industry, vernacular imagery and social media platforms and visual mechanisms for
control and manipulation in the age of surveillance capitalism and deep fakes, as well as the role
of imagery in times of crisis, such as pandemics, wars and climate change. The analysis of these
complex themes will be anchored in existing theoretical frameworks but also include new ways
of thinking about social justice and representation and how to cope with our daily image tsu-
nami. Individual chapters bring together a diverse set of contributions, featuring essays, inter-
views, conversations and case studies by artists, scientists, curators, scholars, medical doctors,
astrophysicists and social activists, who all share a strong interest in how lens-based media have
shaped our world in recent years.
Expanding on contemporary debates within the feld, the Companion is essential reading for
photographers, scholars and students alike.
Moritz Neumüller is a curator, educator and writer in the feld of photography and new
media. He has worked for institutions such as MoMA New York and PhotoIreland Festival in
Dublin and co-founded Photobook Week Aarhus (Denmark) in 2014. Since 2010, he has run
The Curator Ship, an online resource for visual artists. Apart from his curatorial practice, Neu-
müller has been working for more than ten years at the forefront of making culture accessible
for everybody, including disabled people. In 2009, he founded the project ArteConTacto and
in 2011 the initiative MuseumForAll, with the mission to make museums open to all audiences.

THE ROUTLEDGE
COMPANION TO
PHOTOGRAPHY,
REPRESENTATION AND
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Edited by Moritz Neumüller
Designed cover image: Danie Mellor, A gaze still dark (a black portrait of intimacy), 2019 (detail).
Wax pastel, wash with oil pigment, watercolor and pencil on paper, 178 × 117.5cm.
Courtesy the artist and Tolarno Galleries, Narrm/Melbourne. Photography: Mim Stirling. Collection:
National Gallery of Australia.
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Moritz Neumüller; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Moritz Neumüller to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any
electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Neumüller, Moritz, editor.
Title: The Routledge companion to photography, representation & social justice / edited by Moritz Neumüller.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022031192 (print) | LCCN 2022031193 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032112947
(hardback) | ISBN 9781032112954 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003219279 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Photography—Social aspects. | Photography—Political aspects | Representation
(Philosophy) | Social justice in art | Photographers—Interviews
Classification: LCC TR183 .R679 2023 (print) | LCC TR183 (ebook) | DDC 770.1—dc23/eng/20221117
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022031192
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022031193
ISBN: 978-1-032-11294-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-11295-4 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-21927-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003219279
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
1 Representation, Identity and Inclusion 13
1.0 Chapter Introduction 13
1.1 Representation and Responsibility: Institutions as Changemakers 22
Shahidul Alam, Noelle Flores-Théard, Kristen Lubben and Mark Sealy
1.2 Between Camera and Canvas: Man Ray, Picasso and the
Representation of Adrienne Fidelin 32
Wendy A. Grossman
1.3 An Archive in a Suitcase. And the Question of What to
Do With It 47
Ana Briongos, Moritz Neumüller and Carmen Pérez Gonzalez in
Conversation With Azu Nwagbogu and Asya Yaghmurian
1.4 The Representation of the Inuit Population in Greenland,
Then and Now 53
Mette Sandbye
1.5 Representations and Stereotypes of Greenland, Revisited 61
Inuuteq Storch in Conversation With Laila Lund Altinbas
1.6 Photography in Contemporary Jewelry Art 66
Irina Chmyreva
1.7 Repetitive Representations. The Case of Private Photographs 78
Maria Gourieva and Friedrich Tietjen
v
Contents
2 Diversity, Empowerment and Social Justice 87
2.0 Chapter Introduction 87
2.1 The Railway and Its Images: Decolonizing Landscapes Through
the Works of Chinese Visual Artists 97
Yining He
2.2 Through Fa‘afafabulous Glasses: An Interview with Yuki Kihara 108
Nina Tonga
2.3 Participatory Photography: Gaze, Representation and Agency 117
Michelle Bogre
2.4 Canterbury, Revisited: Refections on a Collaborative
Photography Course for Sighted and Visually Impaired Participants 124
Simon Hayhoe, Partho Bhowmick, Noemi Peña Sánchez,
and Karl Bentley
2.5 Social Practice and Photography: Who Is Looking at Whom? 132
Tifany Fairey, Julian Germain and Mark Strandquist in Conversation
With Anthony Luvera
2.6 The Breath of Memory 143
Danie Mellor in Conversation With Tyson Yunkaporta
2.7 The Role of the Andean People in the Work of Martin Chambi,
Revisited 152
Andrés Garay and Moritz Neumüller
3 Crisis and Change 159
3.0 Chapter Introduction 159
3.1 Feminism and Photography: A Situated Exploration of the Visual
Archive of Feminisms in Chile 167
Ángeles Donoso Macaya
3.2 Freedom Is Not Free 179
Mashid Mohadjerin
3.3 Selling the Great White Myth. A Refection on the South
African Media and Communications Industry From the Life
Experience of a Brown Bodied Woman 188
Nicole Klassen
3.4 Working With Archives – Past, Present, Future 196
Cristina de Middel, Rafal Milach and Moritz Neumüller
vi
Contents
3.5 Visual Proof: How Glacier Photography Shows Us the Reality
of Climate Change 203
Andrea Fischer and Magdalena Vukovic
3.6 When Will They Listen? 213
Edward Burtynsky in Conversation With Moritz Neumüller
3.7 Art and Activism Revisited 218
Swaantje Güntzel and Chris Jordan in Conversation With
Moritz Neumüller
4 Automated and Networked Images 227
4.0 Chapter Introduction 227
4.1 Leaks, Growths and Caveats: The Black Hole Image 235
Rashi Rajguru
4.2 Visualisation as a Political Act 249
Peter Galison in Conversation With Moritz Neumüller
4.3 How to Photograph a Virus 258
Florian Krammer in Conversation With Moritz Neumüller
4.4 Video Games Inside the Body: Medical Robots and the Future
of Tele Surgery 264
Michael A. Palese in Conversation With Moritz Neumüller
4.5 Orientation and Resistance in a Fog of Systems 271
Bani Brusadin
4.6 Machine Learning for Aquatic Plastic Litter Detection
Turned Into Art 279
Mattis Wolf and Oliver Zielinski, With an Artist Statement by
Swaantje Güntzel
4.7 Is This Still Photography? Online Experiences, NFTs
and Digital Vernacular 288
Barbara Cueto, Marco De Mutiis and Jon Uriarte
5 Censorship, Image Control and Manipulation 293
5.0 Chapter Introduction 293
5.1 Who, How, and Where? Speaking, Writing, Making Art,
and Publishing in a Censorial World 302
David N. Martin, James W. Koschoreck and Suzanne Szucs
5.2 Tonald Drump, Censorship and Deplatforming 307
Katja Müller-Helle
vii
Contents
5.3 Interviews With Anonymous Internet Content Moderators 313
Eva & Franco Mattes
5.4 Selfes, Biometrics, Geolocation and the 2021 Capitol Hill Riot:
How Photography Is Used in the Service of Surveillance 320
Stephen Chalmers
5.5 The Real, the Unreal and the Authentic 336
Debi Cornwall, Marvin Heiferman, Josué Rivas and Alexey Yurenev
in Conversation With Fred Ritchin
5.6 Image Archives in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism 351
Lukas Fuchsgruber
6 New Ways of Seeing 359
6.0 Chapter Introduction 359
6.1 Exiting the Photographic Universe 371
Fred Ritchin
6.2 Diversifying the Tools of Storytelling: From Photography
and Video to Virtual Reality 380
Zahra Rasool in Conversation With Fred Ritchin
6.3 Lubumbashi to Paulshoek: Iterations of the Local in Six African
Photobook Projects 386
Bronwyn Law-Viljoen
6.4 Remix: Printed Matter From the Caribbean 395
Nadia Huggins
6.5 Opening the Gates for Eastern Concepts and Terminology for
Photography Theory 401
Yining He, Sunyoung Kim and Ivan Vartanian in Conversation With
Moritz Neumüller
6.6 Translation and Use of Western Photography Theory in Asia 409
Yining He, Sunyoung Kim, and Ivan Vartanian in Conversation With
Moritz Neumüller
6.7 Deconstructing Red, Yellow, Black and White 416
Angélica Dass in Conversation With Moritz Neumüller
List of contributors 424
Index 432
viii
INTRODUCTION
Moritz Neumüller
Is Tis Book Worth Another Tree?
Six years ago, I started working on a book about photography and its relation to what I thought
at the time of as vital issues of its ontology, its reason of being, its current form, its ongoing
process of transformation and fnally, its possible future(s). Published in 2018 as The Routledge
Companion to Photography and Visual Culture, it was intended to become “a seminal reference
source for the ever-changing feld of photography”. Or at least this is what the publisher’s mar-
keting people put on the back cover. The contributions by experts and scholars from across the
globe explored the then-current debates surrounding the photograph
as object, art, document, propaganda, truth, selling tool, and universal language; the
perception of photography archives as burdens, rather than treasures; the continual
technological development reshaping the feld; photography as a tool of representation
and control, and more, in this time of unprecedented image consumerism.
(Neumüller 2018: i)
Many things have happened since then, and it seemed that I needed to expand my vision,
broaden my horizon and commit the “symbolic suicide” that Yancy is talking about in The
Image of Whiteness (2014: 19). Maybe the most far-reaching change in the intervening years is
that after the Australian bushfres, the foodings in Europe and the tornados in North America,
public awareness of climate change has fnally turned a corner. Yet if we want to face the most
important problem for our planet for the next centuries, we have to understand that it, too, is
deeply interconnected with pending social issues to be solved:
While the planetary crisis will require invention and legislation, it is a far broader kind
of problem – an environmental problem – that involves social challenges like overpop-
ulation, the disempowerment of women, income inequality, and consumption habits.
(Foer 2019: 22)
However, to “make this book worth a tree”, as Delphine Bedel would put it (Schüle and Tumi-
nas 2021), or the environmental impact of whatever device you are reading this text on, I had
DOI: 10.4324/9781003219279-1 1